


Play Your Part

by DarkNymfa



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Reveal, i think that that just about covers it? probably?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-07-30 08:02:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20093959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkNymfa/pseuds/DarkNymfa
Summary: Danny has always been the odd one out, the misfit, the 'other'. By now, at age 15, he has accepted that this is the way his life will always be. Or will it?





	1. Where The Strong Survive

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A World Tipped on its Head](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/503764) by Cordria. 

> [[cover]](https://darks-ink.tumblr.com/post/186627318041/cover-for-play-your-part-first-chapter-will-go-up)
> 
> I completely forgot that I needed to write a summary for this fic until I just went to post the first chapter so uuuuhhhh I might change it if I think of a better one later. But yes! Here's my new multi-chapter, Play Your Part! Currently planned to be 6 chapters, and somewhere around 20.000 words, I'm guessing? Depends on how long the chapters will be, of course.
> 
> This first chapter is basically a rewrite of Cordria's original one-shot! From what I've seen it seems normal that people just copy-paste the original as their first chapter but tbh I don't like that much because the styles are usually way different. Also I wanted to tweak some details so. I hope that that's not, like, rude or anything!
> 
> As always, weekly updates go up every Saturday! I might change it for the last 2 chapters or so because I want to start posting Weirdward on the 31st but I'll see how I solve that when we get there.

Danny rushed down the street, his eyes cast downwards and his breath loud and raspy even to his own ears. The pavement sped by underneath his feet. It wasn’t fast enough.

“Stupid alarm clock,” he muttered under his breath. Pushed himself just that little quicker. He might not _like_ school, but that didn’t mean that he wanted to be late.

“Need a lift?”

The unexpected voice made him flinch, although he did his best to hide it. Instead he glanced over his shoulder, watching Sam melt into view. She was in her ghost form, her hair white and flickering and her eyes a vivid cyan. Bright, glowing, and sparkling with dark humor.

“No,” he grunted, trying to ignore his tired legs to pick up the pace even further. Somewhere he was glad that it was Sam who found him and not Tucker. No matter how well meaning the boy was, the last thing Danny wanted was to be picked up and flown to school against his will.

She blinked at him for moment, and in the time it took for her to process this, he got a few dozen feet ahead. Then she nodded and drifted down to the ground.

Bright ectoplasmic energy whirled around her. White hair sunk down under the effect of gravity, dyed black once more. Cyan eyes darkened back to violet, and white clothes shifted back to black.

Sam ran a hand through her hair, straightened her clothes, and then sprinted to catch up with him again.

“You’re gonna be late,” Danny panted, suppressing a grin as she joined him.

“Are you kidding?” She laughed. “I can outrun you any day of the week.”

He rolled his eyes, fighting down the retort that came automatically. If she chose to run with him and be late as well, well… who was he to argue? Instead he sent her a lopsided grin, determined to at least keep up with her.

* * *

Skidding to a crashing halt in front of his locker, Danny started whirling the combination lock, rushing to get to class in time. The bell rung, however, signaling that he was officially late for his first class.

He jumped in surprise at the loud noise, losing track of how many turns he had taken to unlock his locker. Sam, who could simply use her intangibility to get her stuff, already had her books.

She drifted back across the hallway, her signature scowl back on her face. She then slumped against the lockers next to him.

“We’re late,” she said unnecessarily.

“I got that,” he answered her through gritted teeth. He tried to focus on unlocking his lock, frustrated that he had had to start over.

“Mr. Fenton! Miss Manson!”

This second unexpected voice had the same effect as the first; Danny started so badly that he almost levitated. He spun around, searching for the origin of the voice.

The hallway appeared empty, however. Completely vacated. Danny knew it _wasn’t_, though. Mr. Lancer, the half-ghost vice-principal, had to be floating invisibly somewhere in it.

He fixed his eyes on the spot he guessed Mr. Lancer would be in. He had no way of knowing, and he really didn’t care except that he had gotten caught by his least favorite teacher once again. It would certainly mean _another_ detention.

The overweight teacher appeared mere moments later. Hands propped against his hips and his eyes blazing a bright red. “Late for school again!” he scoffed, pulling out a small notebook to write their names down. “I expected better from you, Miss Manson.”

“I felt like running,” Sam muttered back. Her arms were still crossed, her body slumped against the lockers.

“Such potential in you.” Lancer shook his head, clearly disappointed, as he finished jotting down their names. “It never fails to surprise me that a child from parents like _yours_ doesn’t flourish in a modern school setting.”

Sam’s eyes narrowed, bright cyan sparking in the darker violet. She’d never been particularly fond of authority figures, and Mr. Lancer’s tendency to compare her to her parents had put him in her bad graces.

Danny, while he heartily agreed with her, remained quiet. He just watched as the teacher took his eyes off of the book, fixing Sam with a glare of his own. He had no intention to get involved, no matter how much it hurt him in his soul to let the others walk all over him.

He wasn’t half-ghost. He didn’t stand a chance against them. And so he had no intention to jump into a situation that could get him killed.

Because, while Sam was normally very considerate of the difference in power between them, she was too riled up now. She could kill him and not even realize until it was too late.

In the end, Mr. Lancer broke the staring contest first. His gaze wandered over to Danny. “And _you_, Mr. Fenton. Although I’m not sure what to expect out of a mere _human_,” he paused for a moment, making it clear how dirty of a word he found it, “I still expect you to be at school on time. Detention for you, and I hope you learn your place in our world someday. Miss Manson, get to class.”

The teacher faded back into invisibility, and Danny took a deep steadying breath. Noticed that his hands were clenched into fists, and wondered when that’d happened.

He _hated_ that he got more detentions that anyone else in the school. It was, without a doubt in his mind, because he was the only _human_ in the school. It might be against the law to discriminate based on age, race, gender… but _species_ wasn’t on the list.

“Fantastic,” he muttered, loosening his fists again. Turned back to his locker, even though he needed a few moments more before attempting to unlock it again.

“Come on, Danny,” Sam said after a moment. Her voice was still tense, and cyan still danced in her eyes. “Let’s get to class before _you_ get into trouble again.”

The emphasis on the ‘you’ didn’t go past him. And while her half-smile and elbow nudge suggested that she had meant it playfully, it just felt like a sour reminder to him.

“What’s on the list of torture for today?” he asked, trying to get his mind off of _that_ topic again. There was no point, anyway. There was nothing he could do to change things. Instead he set about to make his third attempt at unlocking his locker.

“Twenty _new_ reasons to stare at the sole human on the planet, either in distraught pity or in discriminatory frustrated anger.” Her smile was halfhearted but understanding. “Also known as another biased English lesson on the twenty greatest halfa authors of all time, making doubly sure to ignore and/or taunt the _human_ greats such as Shakespeare, Melville, and Doyle.”

Danny sighed gustily as his locker _finally_ opened. “_Great_.”

“You gonna skip again? I’m sure Tucker will record the whole lesson for you to watch later.”

“Nah.” He shook his head, grabbing the books from his locker. “Ever since Lancer figured out how to duplicate, you can’t hide from him. He can be teaching his lesson _and_ hunting you down at the same time. Skulker’s got nothing on him. Skipping is just too much work now.”

“To class, then?”

He hesitated one last second. Then he slammed his locker shut and nodded. “To class.”

* * *

“… and that is the main reason why Arthur Prachet far surpassed his human counterpart during that era. Also a major player in the rise of Prachet’s work was the fact that Shakespeare’s answer to Prachet’s novel rhyme-scheme, the insufficiently thought-out and frankly _annoying_ iambic pentameter, never seemed to catch on. The fact that only two of the human’s works survive to this day is surely a testament to how dreary and drawn-out the human culture had gotten by that point in history.”

Danny tuned out the teacher, only looking away briefly to add another tally to the top of his paper – the forty-eighth of that day. Having finished this task, he fixed his eyes back on the whiteboard behind the teacher. He wouldn’t get scolded for not paying attention, anyway; this particular teacher in fact seemed to _prefer_ it if Danny did absolutely nothing.

And, well. Danny was glad for a chance to _not_ write down every detail of the lesson. As a result, his English notebook was full of blank pages, marred only by the tally marks at the top of every page.

When the teacher managed to slip in _another_ slur against the human species, Danny shifted and added another tally to his page. Wondered, quietly, how many more the halfa could fit in a single lesson. So far the record had been fifty-three, but with almost 15 minutes left, it didn’t look too good for the record.

He let his eyes drift towards the windows, letting himself sink deeper into his thoughts. ‘_Really’_, he thought bitterly, ‘_everyone in my family is half-ghost. Doesn’t that mean that I am one too, kind of? Even if I don’t have any powers, that doesn’t make me human, right?’_

Even in his own mind, the word ‘human’ had sounded like a dirty insult. The word had been so deeply drenched by negative connotations that, even in the comfort of his own thoughts, it sounded vile.

With a huff, he picked up his stream of thoughts again. _‘I mean. If two dogs have a puppy that looks like a kitten, it’s still a dog, no matter what it looks like or can do. I just wish…’_

A ball of paper hit him in the head, and Danny jerked up. Send a glare at the offending piece of paper, absentmindedly adding another tally to his paper – the teacher had surely gotten in another insult while Danny had been distracted, just because he was in the room.

He unwrinkled the paper, quickly reading the scrawled words – _Betcha wish you coulda phased through that_ – and scowled. He raised his head to fix Dash – the obvious sender – with said scowl, pointless as it was. Without the glowing eyes a halfa would sport, he simply couldn’t hope to reach the same level of intimidation.

Still, like it wasn’t bad enough that he had to listen to _teacher_ drone on and on about the brilliance of half-ghosts and their powers, his fellow students had to add to whole thing. Like he had _chosen_ to be the only pure human on the whole _damn_ planet!

Dash just grinned back, flashing his eyes a menacing red. He ripped another piece of paper out of his notebook, scribbled a message, and balled it up. Then he lobbed it through the air, forcing Danny to make the difficult choice of what to do with it.

On one hand, he could catch it and find out what Dash had threatened him with. On the other, he could bat it off into a corner and ignore it for forever.

In the end he didn’t have to pick. A ball of cyan light intercepted it before it reached him, disintegrating the paper into ashes and dust.

“Hey!” Dash called out. His eyes turned red fully as they darted around, looking for the creator of the ectoblast.

Both Dash and Danny found her simultaneously – not that it was hard. Sam lounged in the back of the class, her eyes still bright and sparks of matching cyan still writhing around her hand.

“You stupid--”

“No energy manipulation in this classroom!” the teacher shouted, interrupting the incoming fight. Then, unbelievably, he followed it up with, “Fenton, detention!”

Danny’s head whipped around. “What for?!”

“Stop instigating my class.” Lancer flared his eyes red, warning.

“But--”

Danny bit his tongue, cutting off the retort. It made no sense, but he couldn’t win this confrontation.

It wasn’t fast enough, though. Red energy sparkled around the furious half-ghost teacher, as bright as his eyes.

Having no desire to get into this fight, Danny slunk out of his seat and beat a quick retreat from the room before the situation got worse. Sure, the teacher probably wouldn’t actually attack him, but, well. Everyone knew that sometimes it was hard to control ghost powers, especially if you’re angry.

And the last thing Danny wanted was to get evaporated over something so stupid. So ordinary.

Still, he couldn’t help but feel a brief pang of disappointment. The record for number of human slurs spoken in a single class would remain unbroken.

* * *

“Danny, sweetie,” his mom said when he finally came home from yet another day in hell – sorry, school – as she pushed her goggles up on her forehead, “it’s not your fault. There’s nothing wrong with you.”

Danny groaned, dropping into a chair in his parents’ basement lab. “Tell that to the teachers and the other students.”

“You’ll get your powers eventually, honey.” She smiled at him. “Slow development runs in your father’s side of the family, you know. Jack didn’t get his powers until he was eleven…”

“I’m _fifteen_.” A scowl found its way to his face once more.

“Which isn’t unheard of,” she lied smoothly. “You’re a Fenton.”

Danny rolled his eyes. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“You come from a long line of powerful half-ghosts. Before you know it, you’ll wake up and you’ll be just like your great-grandfather, the--”

“--great halfa explorer who helped conquer the new world from the human barbarians,” Danny finished dully. They had had this exact conversation dozens of times, and he had practically memorized it by now. “Has it ever occurred to you that I might _never_ get ghost powers?”

She blinked at him. “Of course you’ll get your powers. You just need to think positively.”

“Yeah, sure.” He shrugged, figuring he might as well go along. His parents were both stubborn to no end; if they wanted to believe that he would still get ghost powers, there was nothing he could do to change their minds.

“In the meantime, look at this.” Her aura brightened slightly as she picked up her latest device. “It’s called the ‘Fenton Human Hearer’.”

It was placed in Danny’s hands, a grin on her face. “Jack and I _know_ that there are pockets of humans left in this world. If we ever find one, this will turn their incomprehensible mutterings into something we can understand!”

Danny raised a skeptical eyebrow, eyes on her instead of the invention. “Don’t they speak English?”

A whir from the machine. Then, “Don’t they speak English? Fear me.”

Now he dropped his eyes to the gadget. From the corner of his eyes, he saw his mom do the same. Maddie shrugged, then plucked it out of his hands. “I’ve never met a true human. I wouldn’t know.”

“I don’t count?” he asked, not sure how he felt about the implication. Was it because he was _better_ than a human, or just because she refused to concern the possibility?

“You’ll get your powers,” she said with conviction. “You’re a halfa – a Fenton.”

He nodded quietly, his unasked question thus answered. She still believed that he would get his powers, even if he was years and years past even the latest of late bloomers.

It didn’t make sense to him. Why keep denying it? Somehow, against all reason and expectations, he wasn’t a half-ghost. He hadn’t inherited _any_ of his parents’ powers, not even a shred of their ectoplasmic sides.

Consumed by these thoughts, he silently watched his mom tidy her side of the lab. His parents were constantly working on all kinds of inventions, and thus new pieces of technology appeared and disappeared on a daily basis in the cramped basement. Most remained unpopular, however; his parents’ obsession with humans made their inventions largely useless to the rest of their half-ghost society.

Maddie paused in her work, picking up a small, strange-looking necklace. She studied it for a moment, a crease in her brow. “Where did…” She shook her head. “I wish Jack would tell me when he gets new things. Danny, can you put this on Jack’s workbench for me?”

Nodding, he slipped out the chair again. Took the necklace from her hands, turning to head towards the messier side of the lab.

But, just as her fingers slipped from the chain, a surge of energy flooded throughout the lab. It was powerful enough for even Danny to feel it, the hum of pure power in the air.

He saw his mom twist around, her eyes widening in surprise and fear, glowing vivid chartreuse. Similarly colored ectoplasm formed around her hands, as if to fight this unseen enemy.

It was the last thing Danny saw before blindingly white light wrapped around him. He screamed in terror, feeling the energy ripping at his body, and could do nothing but clutch the strange necklace to his chest.

Then, blissfully, he passed out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's title is from Lions Inside by Valley of Wolves! Bit of a slow start, but it's just kinda introducing the setting and the AU. Next chapter things start really kicking off, and I'm excited for it!
> 
> Next week: Chapter 2 - Life’s Not Making Sense


	2. Life's Not Making Sense

When Danny opened his eyes, it was to the sight of both of his friends hovering over him. Worry was clearly visible in both Sam’s and Tucker’s eyes, for once not disguised by the glow of their ghost forms.

“Danny?” Sam asked, her eyes widening as the both of them stepped back to give him a little more space. “Are you alright?” Then, after a brief hesitation, she added, “Sorry, standard question.”

“I think so.” Danny pushed himself into a seated position, rolling his shoulders and feeling the muscles ache from the sheer power he had encountered just now. “What happened?”

“Not sure,” Tucker said, cocking his head. “But I bet it was the Nasty Burger you ate. I _told_ you it didn’t taste right.”

“Nasty Burger?” Danny repeated, blankly. What was _that_ supposed to be? It sure didn’t _sound_ like something you would want to eat. “What…”

He trailed off as he noticed something weird. Not only were his friends hovering over him when, moments before, they hadn’t been anywhere nearby. He was _outside_. How? Hadn’t he _just_ been in his parents’ lab?

Jerking slightly, he turned to look around him. It didn’t take him long to recognize the park, even if it didn’t make sense. If something had happened with the necklace, why was he _in the park_? Shouldn’t he be at home, then, getting looked over or something?

“Yup,” Tucker confirmed for him, drawing his attention back to the nonsensical conversation they were having. “Are you fine, or do you need to go home?”

“_Tucker_,” Sam scolded, swatting at the boy. “He just collapsed for no reason. Of _course_ he’s not fine!”

“You know how fast he heals,” Tucker muttered, making no sense again. “Just because he fainted doesn’t mean that he can’t go to the movie. I figured I might as well ask before I wrote off _all_ our plans for the day.”

Danny opened his mouth to answer, but then hesitated and closed it again. _Was_ he fine? He didn’t feel all that bad, the ache in his muscles receding already, but… but what had happened to him? He couldn’t remember how he had gotten here, in the park, and Tucker seemed to be talking nonsense as well. Something had happened in the lab, and he couldn’t remember anything after, and… “I think…”

“He’s going home.” Sam nodded decisively.

“But it’s _Dead Teacher Eleven_,” Tucker moaned, slumping dramatically. “The not-to-miss continuance of the blood and guts nonsense of _Dead Teacher Ten_. You’ve read the reviews – we can’t miss it!”

Ignoring the debate for the moment, Danny pushed himself up to his feet. But the moment he stood, his legs wavered, balance still upset from the wave of white-hot energy earlier. Sam and Tucker caught him immediately, grabbing him by the shoulders to help him stay upright.

“I think Sam’s right,” he said, softly. At the very least, his mom could tell him what happened after he grabbed the necklace, after the energy strike.

Now Tucker cocked his head, looking at him with even more concern in his eyes. “You’re _voluntarily_ going home? Should I call 9-1-1?”

“So what?” he grunted back, frustrated. The day had been long and hellish, and he still didn’t understand what was happening, and he was just so _tired_ of all the confusion and the otherness. “So I’m not as strong as you. Leave off.”

Tucker blinked. Blinked again. “What?” he finally replied, blankly.

“You heard me.” Danny huffed, squirming a little in the arms of Sam and Tucker. He was strongly considering asking them to just fly him home so he could get answers. “Just… Let’s just go home, I’m done.”

Both of his friends shared a worried glance, but nodded, and together they started walking back. Neither of them offered to fly him, which was… strange. Normally they were oh-so eager to show off.

They made it all the way to the edge of the park before Sam pulled to a sudden stop, making Danny stumble as a result.

“Danny,” she breathed, eyes fixed on something in the distance.

“What?” he grumbled back, annoyed.

“The Box Ghost,” Tucker finished for her, also looking in the distance. He raised a hand, pointing helpfully at the specter.

Danny watched the blue ghost as well, wondering how the annoying spirit had gotten out the Ghost Zone. Then he realized that not only was no one stopping him, they were… running away? Why? Any of these people, these halfas, could’ve taken on the weak spirit with ease. Why were they _running_?

“Are you going to do something?” Sam asked, impatiently, as she crossed her arms.

“Me?” Danny took his eyes off of the bizarre spectacle, raising a questioning eyebrow at Sam.

“Who else?” Tucker shrugged, still keeping one spectacled eye on the Box Ghost. “You’re the half-ghost.”

He felt himself still entirely. His muscles tensed, protesting quietly.

“I’m _what_?!” he shouted, before immediately slapping his hands over his mouth to avoid drawing attention. Then, more quietly, he repeated, “I’m _what_?”

Sam and Tucker shared another glance, before settling worried eyes on him once more.

“You’re not _our_ Danny, are you?” Sam asked, her tone flat as if she already knew the answer. But that… but that couldn’t be, right? Wasn’t he the only Danny? The only _him_?

Apparently the confusion in his eyes just confirmed it for her, because she nodded and turned to Tucker. “Definitely not ours, then. Must’ve happened after we lost track of him, which is why he was knocked out.”

“So it _wasn’t_ that Nasty Burger?” Tucker shook his head, sounding somewhat disappointed. “Too bad, because I could’ve sworn something was up with that. Ah well. Wanna bet our Danny got swapped with this one?”

“Probably,” Sam acknowledged with a nod. “I wonder why. Actually…” She nudged him, and Danny startled back to awareness, too occupied with trying to make sense of the conversation to actually follow it. “Hey, what is your world like?”

“My… world?” He frowned, trying to figure out what she could be referring to, exactly. Obviously it must be pretty similar, right, if he looked like their Danny, and they looked like his Sam and Tucker?”

“Yeah, world, universe, dimension, timeline. Whatever you wanna call it.” Tucker shrugged, pulling a PDA from his pocket. Well, _that_ stayed the same as well, he supposed. “Anything major happening over there? Anything that could benefit from the intervention of a half-ghost?”

“… no?” Danny tried, uncertainly. “I mean, what is one more, right?”

The two of them shared a knowing glance, then Tucker said, “One more? There’s that many halfas over there?”

“Well, yeah. Who isn’t?” Then he grimaced. “Well, besides me, I guess. And my parents are convinced that there’s still humans out there, somewhere, but I don’t think I believe them on that. No one but me.”

“Wait, _everyone_ is a halfa?” Sam repeated, sounding… thrown off. Thrown off and shocked and astonished. “Everyone _but_ you? That’s like, pretty much the reverse of here. Holy shit.”

“Uh huh.” Danny’s eyes caught on the blue ghost that was still causing a ruckus in the streets, telekinetically throwing boxes all around. “Um. So is no one gonna stop the Box Ghost, or…?”

“What?” Sam turned around, saw the Box Ghost, and sighed. She shook her head as she turned back to Danny. “Eh, he’s not all that dangerous. I’m sure the Fentons will pick up on his presence soon enough and come hunt him down. We’ve got more important things to focus on.”

“… right.” Danny took his eyes off of the ghost again to squint at Sam. Her casual dismissal of the Box Ghost was strange, since apparently no one here was half-ghost. Wasn’t he still a danger to regular humans? “So, um. Any idea what’s going on?”

“Well, it doesn’t sound like Clockwork?” Tucker shrugged uncertainly. “I’m not sure who else could’ve done it, to be honest. I didn’t seen anyone else, and it was such a short window that there’s no way Vlad could’ve done it.”

“Why _would_ Vlad have done it?” Sam asked, a harsh tone to her voice. “In the hopes of pulling in a Danny that was not only _also_ half-ghost, but also more obedient to him? There’s no way he would’ve taken that risk.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Danny held up his hand, halting the discussion. “You’re telling me that you have proof that Clockwork exists? _How_? We have an entire _population_ of half-ghosts _and_ the many ghosts of the Zone, and _we_ don’t have proof.”

“Uh, yeah.” Tucker tapped around on his PDA a little, then pulled up a photo of a ghost. Blue skin, empty red eyes with a scar over one of them. Purple hood and robe as well, it seemed, but it was hard to tell since only the ghost’s head was on the photo. “He messes with you, or uh, Danny, sometimes. To make sure the future turns out right, and stuff.”

Danny nodded at this, accepting the information. Based on the stories, and on what Tucker just told him, it didn’t sound like Clockwork was responsible. But what else could’ve…?

Oh. _Oh_.

“Guys,” he said, unintentionally interrupting the conversation between his friends again, which he had zoned out of. “I think I might know how this happened.”

“You do?” Tucker shot him a hopeful grin, tapping around on his PDA. “That’s great, because I was running out of options on my list. Let’s hear it, man!”

“I think, um. I might’ve done it? From my, uh, universe, at least?”

“I thought you weren’t a half-ghost?” Sam asked skeptically, one eyebrow raised. “And I doubt your parents’ inventions would’ve been responsible for it, if they’re not ghost hunters on your side.”

“Ghost hunters?” Danny repeated incredulously. “Well, no, they hunt humans, obviously.” At her sharp glare he blanched, dropping back to the original topic. “But I was in the lab with Mom, right, and there was this necklace on one of the desks. And she asked me to clean it up, but when I picked it up, it released some kind of weird energy pulse? Then I blacked out and I woke up here.”

“Yeah, that’ll do it,” Tucker agreed with a nod. His stylus moved over the screen rapidly as he tapped away the new information. “D’you think it was a ghost artifact? Must be, right, with that kind of powers?”

“Probably, yeah.” He hummed, then perked up as his ears picked up on a strange noise. Was that… screeching metal?

An enormous tank-like vehicle screamed into the street. Silver, with green accents, and a flame-like logo on the side, a large F in the center of it. Wait, didn’t Sam mention…

The doors slammed open, and in perfect sync, two people jumped out. Both dressed in very familiar jumpsuits, one teal, the other orange.

He groaned, slumping in on himself. He wasn’t sure if it was better or worse, knowing that his parents were just as eccentric in this world as they were in his own.

“Some things don’t change, huh?” Tucker asked, a grin on his face. “At least they’re helpful for once, since we don’t have to worry about Boxy while they’re hunting him.”

“_And_,” Sam pointed out, “we can borrow the Specter Speeder while they’re not home! If it _is_ a ghost artifact, and it probably is, let’s be real, then we can find out more in the Ghost Zone.”

“Wait, hold on.” Danny held out his hands, breaking up her enthusiastic speech. “You want _us_ to go into the Ghost Zone? Three ordinary humans? That’s _suicide_.”

“Nah, it’ll be fine,” Tucker dismissed immediately, flapping his hand. “We’ve been there tons of time, and we’re still fine, aren’t we? And we can ask Jazz to come along, too, so it’ll be the four of us.”

“But, but--”

“The Speeder has built-in weapons, Danny, it’ll be fine.” Sam grabbed him by the shoulders and started pushing him in the direction of his house. “Let’s get a move on, Boxy won’t distract them forever.”

“This world is _insane_,” he groaned, but he gave up on protesting. If he could survive his usual life surrounded by half-ghosts, surely the Zone wouldn’t kill him either.

He only hoped that, if the Danny from _this_ world had taken his place, that the boy was doing alright, too. Oh god, if he was a half-ghost and used his powers around his parents they would _never_ give up on Danny getting powers too!

Or… or they might see the son they had always wanted, but didn’t get. An actual half-ghost, like them, instead of a human abomination like him. Maybe… maybe this was the way it was always supposed to have been…

!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-

When Danny opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was his mom leaning over him. The first thing he _thought_ was ‘oh man, some ghost must’ve jumped me in the park.’ That, at least, would explain the bright flash of light – and the searing pain that followed it.

“Oh, Danny! Are you okay?” his mom asked, a cool washrag in her hand. He noticed, now, that he was laying on the couch in the living room. That was a little strange. If Sam and Tucker had brought him home, why hadn’t they put him in his bed?

His head pounded as he tried to think of it, though, and instead he decided to answer his mom. Maybe she could tell him more. “What happened?” he moaned.

“What do you remember, sweetie?” She pressed the washrag against his forehead, concern clear in her violet eyes.

“I was in the park with Sam and Tucker,” he started, slowly, trying to put together his memories. He wasn’t sure if he should mention the light, but… but his parents would blame it on a ghost anyway. “There was this bright light… and then I woke up here?”

She clicked her tongue sympathetically. “You must have lost a bit of your memory. You made it all the way home, you were helping me in the lab. There was an accident and you got shocked.”

“Makes sense,” he muttered, scrunching his eyes closed a little. He knew how much his parents’ technology ‘liked’ him. The downside of living with his ghost-hunting parents as a half-ghost.

“You’re going to stay home from school tomorrow,” his mom continued in a no-nonsense tone. “I’m not going to let you take any more of that bullying after a shock like that.”

At this, Danny raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t told either of his parents about Dash… had Jazz? “Okay,” he told her, though. Any excuse to stay out of school was one he would gladly take. Maybe he could catch up on homework for once, or, hell, maybe he could get some sleep for once. He would deal with the inevitable repercussions later.

“I’m sure you’ve got a headache, sweetie.” She brushed a lock of his hair out of his eyes, gently.

The pain in his head was ebbing away already, thankfully; one of the upsides of being half-ghost. But he was feeling achy, still, and there were still bruises on his body from an earlier battle with Skulker. A few painkillers would be more than welcome, so he nodded.

“I’ll get you some aspirin and you can take a nap.” She got up, but hovered for a moment longer. “If it doesn’t go away, we’ll take you in to see the doctor tomorrow.”

Ugh, no thanks. The pain was already pretty much gone, anyway. That, and he couldn’t risk a doctor finding out about his ghost half. It would be… it would be bad beyond words, he was sure.

As he laid back against the cushions of the couch, he couldn’t help but wonder what invention of his parents got him this time. Usually he was careful enough in the lab to avoid them, and most wouldn’t have been powerful enough to knock him out, anyway. Not while they effect was dampened because he was in his human form.

His mom returned, handing him two aspirin and a glass of water. “Thanks,” he said, swallowing the pills.

“You’re welcome, Danny.” She smiled, pulling up a blanket to cover him. “Just lay here and get some rest. And don’t worry about your ghost powers… you’ll get them soon, I’m sure.”

Danny’s mind ground to a sudden halt. Eyes widening, he stared at his mom, her own eyes sincere and caring. Ghost powers?

“R-Right,” he stuttered back, uncertainly. “I’m… sure.”

She nodded, patting him on the head. “Like I said before, in the lab. You’re a late bloomer, like your dad. But you’ll see, once you’ve got them, that you’ll be far more powerful than the others, okay? You’re a Fenton.”

“Uh huh,” he agreed, blankly. What on Earth was this about? Why was she talking about ghost powers, and him still _getting_ them? Why was she implying that his dad had them, too? Hell, it sounded like they were _normal_ for their family, but--

Wait. Was he… Had he jumped into a different universe? Or timeline or whatever? Is that why his memories didn’t line up right? Had he swapped with some powerless Danny, into a world where he was _supposed_ to be a half-ghost?

“Sorry, I’ll let you get some sleep.” She smiled, ruffling his hair once more, before she moved away again. “I’ll wake you up for dinner, okay?”

“Yeah, uh. Yeah. Thanks, Mom.” His eyes were locked on her. She _looked_ like his own mom. She _sounded_ and _acted_ like his own mom. Was she still a ghost hunter, if his dad was a halfa too? Was his dad like him, in his ghost form, using his powers to hunt dangerous ghosts? How much did they know about halfas?

Was this a learning opportunity provided to him by Clockwork? To make up for the non-existent mentoring Vlad offered?

Well, there was no point in worrying about it now, was there? Better to get that nap first, so his mom would stop worrying. That, and he would think better when he was well rested. Or, that’s what Jazz always said, at least.

And with that, he let himself nod off, laying on a couch in a living room just like his own, in a world that _wasn’t_.

!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-

As she had said, his mom – or this version of her – woke him up for dinner. A little sleep-drunk, he stumbled after her into the kitchen, joining his dad and Jazz at the table. Both of them looked ordinary, but apparently _this_ Jack Fenton had ghost powers. Presumably, Jazz did as well, if they were all counting on him having them too.

“Danny-boy!” his dad boomed when he sat down, “Heard some of the kids at school were missing with you again! Just wait til you get your powers, then you can kick all of their butts!”

“_Dad_,” Jazz chided, her eyes briefly flickering purple. Wait, hold on. Purple, huh? “Don’t give him any bad ideas! Using powers to fight is a _terrible_ idea, _and_ it’s against the school rules.”

Their dad rolled his eyes. “Nonsense. He needs to show them his power, that’s the only thing young halfas listen to! Right, kiddo?”

“Uh. I dunno?” He shrugged, trying to dig the presented information out of this bit of conversation. Were powers… normal, here? Did _everyone_ have them? Well, everyone but him? Was he bullied not because of his parents, but because of his lack of powers?

Yeesh, he didn’t know if that was better or worse than how it was back home. It definitely meant that he couldn’t risk fighting back. If they discovered he had powers before he swapped back with the powerless Danny that was _supposed_ to be here, he could get this other version of himself seriously hurt.

He only hoped that other Danny was doing alright, back in his own universe. Sam and Tucker would realize pretty quickly, right? As long as no powerful ghosts attacked, none that required Phantom’s intervention, it would be alright. And if Clockwork was responsible for this, and surely he was, then things would _definitely_ be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter title is from Trouble (feat. Ryan Levine) by Ether and the Chordtones. And with this we reach the big twist of the original story, and the last bits inspired by Cordria's original fic. It's a lot of fun to write two versions of the same character like this, to explore what stays the same and what changes between them - and to force them to figure out the same, too.
> 
> Next week: Chapter 3 - You Might Just See A Ghost Tonight


	3. You Might Just See A Ghost Tonight

“So let me make sure I got this right.” Jazz’s eyes darted from Danny to Sam and Tucker, then back to Danny. “This is Danny, but he’s not _our_ Danny?”

Tucker opened his mouth, but Jazz held up a hand to silence him. “I wasn’t done yet. So this Danny is from an alternate timeline where everyone _but_ him is half-ghost. He got dragged here because of some strange artifact, and now you guys want to go into the Ghost Zone to find out what it did and how to undo it. Right?”

“I guess?” Danny shrugged. “It was their idea.”

Jazz rolled her eyes. “Of course it was. Clearly _you_ never have stupid ideas, do you?”

“Hey!” He huffed and crossed his arms. “I don’t know about _your_ Danny, but I do my best to stay in the background, thank you very much! The last thing I need to do is draw the ire of people stronger than me.”

“Ah, that’s definitely not like Danny,” Tucker commented, nodding wisely. “He would fight God if he could.”

“Alright, so I’m not a ballsy half-ghost, whatever. Can we focus, please?” He didn’t want to hear more about how, even here, he was lesser. He had hoped, briefly, that maybe he would fit in better in this world of humans, rather than half-ghosts. But apparently that wasn’t the case.

Apparently he couldn’t even live up to the standards set by _himself_.

“Of course. Well, here’s my first question for you three.” Jazz gestured at him. “Do you know if you only swapped your minds, and kept the bodies in the right place, or is this a full swap?”

“What?” Danny asked, frowning at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, mind swaps are a classic plot device, right?” She shrugged. “But usually that only involves swapping the minds of the people involved. So if that is what’s happening here, you would still be able to access Danny’s ghost powers, because it’s still _his_ body, not yours.”

Danny held out his hands, staring down at them. They _looked_ perfectly normal. He didn’t feel any different, either. But then he was supposed to be half-ghost, too, normally. So what was the difference?

“How can I tell? If it’s his body or mine?”

“Ghost powers, duh.” Tucker’s grin became even wider when Danny glared at him.

“I don’t know, Jazz. I don’t think he has powers,” Sam pointed out, ignoring the two bickering boys. “With that kinda glaring we would be seeing green already.”

“Huh?” Danny’s head snapped back to the two girls, glare softening in a frown. “Oh, yeah, I guess. I’m not sure how you’re supposed to trigger any of them on purpose, anyway.”

“No one ever taught you how to use your powers? No special lessons or anything?” Tucker stepped in closer again, curiosity peaked. “Even though everyone had them?”

“Well, no.” He shrugged. “Apparently it just kind of comes naturally? They usually start manifesting when you’re pretty young. My dad was really late, and he got them by twelve.”

“Hence why you’re so sure you won’t get them.” Jazz nodded in understanding. “I guess that that makes sense.”

“Why does it matter if it’s a body or a mind swap, anyway?” Sam cocked her head, her brow creased. “We gotta learn more about that artifact, anyway. Whether he has ghost powers or not doesn’t matter for that.”

“Yeah, no, you’re right,” Jazz admitted. “Curiosity, mostly, and it could’ve helped you narrow down the search.”

“Eh, we’ll figure it out anyway.” Tucker held up his PDA demonstratively. “You’re underestimating our powers of research, Jazz.”

“Whatever makes you feel better.” She rolled her eyes, then sat down at the kitchen table. “I’ll keep my parents distracted if they come back before you guys, but don’t make it too long, okay? Or warn me beforehand so I can lure them away.”

“Yes ma’am.” Tucker shot her a grin and a salute as he made his way towards the door to the lab. “Let’s go, guys!”

Danny heaved a sigh but followed anyway, Sam right on his heels. “Is he always this enthusiastic?”

“Nah. I think he just wants to see your reaction to some of the ghosts Danny knows. Or, uh.” She made a face. “Our Danny, I guess, since you’re Danny too.”

He snorted. “Yeah, it’s kind of confusing, isn’t it?”

“No kidding.”

They entered the lab, which… actually looked different from the lab back home. Lots of glowing green on their inventions, too. Clearly powered by ectoplasm. Tucker was already standing next to an enormous cylindrical vehicle, which floated a foot or so above the floor.

“And here’s the Specter Speeder!” He threw out his hands towards the vehicle. “Tah-dah!”

He looked it over, nodding despite himself. “Not bad. Looks better than the RV, at least. Less tank-like.”

“Less reviewing your parents’ inventions, more getting in.” Sam shoved him towards the door, and he stumbled in.

“Alright, alright. No need to shove me!”

She clambered in after him, Tucker following suit and closing the door. “Who’s gonna pilot?” she asked the other boy.

“You do it, I’ll keep track on my PDA.” Following this statement, he sat down in the co-pilot seat. Co-driver? What did you call the person steering a hovercraft? “And Danny can sit in the back and enjoy the view.”

“Thanks,” he said dryly. “You sure you don’t need me to do anything?”

“Eh.” Tucker shrugged. “You can help look at stuff when we get somewhere, but for now we’ll be fine. Maybe prepare yourself to meet some of your fans, so you can convince them that you’re not the normal Danny?”

He made a face. “He has fans?”

“Some,” Sam commented, starting up the Speeder. “But mostly just humans. Tucker was referring to some of the non-malevolent ghosts that Danny is allied with, since we’ll be asking them first. You said it was a magical necklace, right, that brought you here?”

“I mean, I’m pretty sure that that was the thing responsible, yeah.” He shrugged, then realized she couldn’t see it. “Why?”

She turned her head some, sharing a glance with Tucker. “I was thinking we could start with Dora, then. She’s our expert on magical necklaces.”

“A magical necklace that lets you turn into a dragon isn’t the same as a body-swapping necklace, Sam,” Tucker pointed out. He then undermined his own statement by leaning forward and setting the destination on the navigational system.

“It’s a good place to start, anyway.” She shot Danny a look over her shoulder, briefly. “Better than Frostbite, anyway, and Clockwork wouldn’t be any help whatsoever.”

Danny frowned, fingers tapping on the edge of his seat. “You’re telling me that he’s the _only_ half-ghost around, constantly fighting full ghosts, and yet he only has like, three allies? And you guys, I guess.”

“Yeah, kinda.” Tucker shrugged, twisting in his seat to talk more easily. “Most of the ghosts don’t like Danny getting in their way. And some are encouraged by Vlad, too, since he’s also half-ghost and doesn’t like that Danny isn’t on his side.”

“Really? Vlad? As in, Vlad Masters?”

“You know him?” Sam asked, not looking away from the front window.

“Well, yeah. Dad says Vlad is his best friend, but he comes around basically never. Old college friends or something, I think.”

“Huh. Yeah, that checks out with how it is around here. He flirts with your – Danny’s – mom a lot, and makes evil plots because he’s half-ghost and wants Danny as his half-ghost son or something.” Tucker shrugged, leaning his arms on the back of his seat. “It’s kind of messed up.”

“But that doesn’t make sense!” Danny flapped his hand, gesturing wildly. “Why am I human, countered by your Danny being half-ghost, if _he_ gets to be half-ghost in both worlds? How does that make sense?!”

“I dunno, man. This sort of thing doesn’t have to make sense, you know?”

“But that’s so _unfair_!” Danny groaned, burying his head in his hands. “Why do _I_ have to deal with this shit my whole damn life while _he_ gets away just fine! So he’s not particularly powerful, at least he’s not bullied over it like I am!”

Tucker hummed. “He’s not… powerful? That’s weird. Vlad in his ghost form is among the most powerful ghosts we’ve encountered.”

“_Great_. So not only is my half-ghost counterpart here way stronger than normal halfas should be, _Vlad_ gets to be all powerful too? So then what’s the _damn_ difference?”

“Well, Vlad _is_ pretty messed up,” Sam piped up from the front seat. “He suffered from ecto-acne after the accident in college, and he took years to get his powers, as opposed to Danny who got them pretty much instantly. Maybe that got mirrored in your universe into an accident that weakened him, but didn’t completely remove his powers?”

“But that suggests that I’ve been in an accident that made _me_ lose my powers.” He looked down at his hands, clenching and unclenching them. “But that has never happened. As far as I know I’ve never had powers. I wouldn’t even know what my ghost form looks like.”

“Now _that_ is a question I can answer.” Tucker clicked around on his PDA a little, then held it out for Danny. “Here’s a photo of Danny Phantom for you. I dunno what you guys wear in your ghost forms, if they’re formed naturally, but this is what he looks like, at least.”

“Huh.” Danny took the PDA from Tucker’s hands, eyes roving over the screen. Pictures on there was indeed what he might expect from his own ghost form, bar the clothing. Messy white hair, a brilliant smile, and vivid green eyes. A good mid-point between his parents’ chartreuse and green, he supposed. But--

“Why is he wearing a jumpsuit?” he asked, handing it back to Tucker. “He isn’t following our parents’ style, is he?”

“No, no. That’s what he was wearing when he became half-ghost, only inverted.” Tucker glanced at the front seat, but Sam remained silent. Her hands were clenched around the steering wheel with such force that the knuckles turned white. “He, um. Sam kind of talked him into wearing it.”

“Oh.” He cleared his throat, awkwardly. “Well, um. Why doesn’t he change it, then? That’s what we do, normally, to make our clothes match our current style.”

Tucker shrugged, turning back around in his seat. “It makes him look superhero-y, I guess. He’s never complained about it, at least.”

“I guess I can’t argue with that.” Danny glanced out of the front window, eyes roving over the expansive green landscape. “Hey, is that a castle?”

“Yup. The castle of Queen Dorathea.” The Speeder jerked as Sam slowed it down. “This is our destination for today. If she can’t help us, we’ll have to try somewhere else tomorrow.”

“Alright.” They landed, and he undid his seat belt. “So, uh. Is this one of those ghosts that knows other-me?”

“Yep,” Tucker confirmed, stretching himself out. “Just don’t piss her off and we’ll be alright. Sam can take point, right, Sam?”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it.” She stood up, smoothly, and exited the vehicle. “As long as you two don’t behave like idiots, we’ll be fine.”

“I don’t know, that’s a lot to ask of us, Sam.” Danny shot her a grin as he caught up. “I don’t think Tucker has spent a single moment in his life _not_ being an idiot.”

“Oh, you’re one to speak!” The other caught up and shoved Danny, a fake offended expression on his face. “You’re-- Watch out!”

Tucker’s fingers wrapped around Danny’s wrist, barely preventing him from falling. He stared back, wide-eyed, half his chest and the other arm phased through a wall.

Sam grabbed hold as well, and the two of them pulled Danny back onto his feet.

“Sorry,” Tucker said, grin a little shaky. “I, uh, didn’t realize that you didn’t know you could phase through stuff in here.”

Danny just looked between him, the wall, and then him and Sam again. “Come again?”

“Humans are the ghosts in the Ghost Zone,” Sam explained, entering the castle proper now. “You can phase through stuff if you want. And, since I see the way you’re looking, yes, not wanting to hit something counts as wanting to phase through it.”

“Oh.” He glanced at his arm, then the wall. “Is that… what it is supposed to feel like? Intangibility?”

“Actually, I’m not too sure.” Tucker caught up as well. “I never asked Danny.”

“Seems like a missed opportunity.”

“Yeah, indeed.”

They paused before a large ghost, his empty red eyes peering at them over a humongous ax. Then the ghost nodded, minutely, and floated aside. “Sir Phantom. Our Queen can be found in the library.”

“Uh.” He shot Sam and Tucker a half-panicked glance, then looked back at the ghost. “Thank you?”

The ghost simply hummed. Eyes still wide, he sped past, Sam and Tucker rushing after him.

“Not used to seeing big ghosts like that?” Tucker smirked. “Or was the title getting to you?”

“A little bit of both.” He shot the other boy a glare. “Couldn’t you warn me about that? I thought you two said that I didn’t have any fans among the ghosts!”

“They’re not fans,” Sam explained patiently as they made their ways through the halls. Apparently the two of them knew where the library was, or they were better at pretending than him. “Dora really _did_ knight Danny to thank him for services rendered.”

“That still would’ve been nice to know!” They entered a hallway with two enormous double doors at the end. “A title is still a big deal, you know!”

“Sorry, we kind of… forgot?” Tucker smiled sheepishly. “Danny doesn’t like them, so we tease him about them. I guess we didn’t realize that they could be a big deal to, well, _you_.”

“Alright, well--” he fell silent as both of his conversation partners walked _through_ the giant wooden doors.

He made a face. Then, not wanting to come across like an idiot – or at least not more so that he already has – he focused on the earlier sensation of phasing through the wall, and walked forward.

Sam and Tucker stood on the other side of the doors. They weren’t alone. A girl, green skinned and red-eyed, with long braided blonde hair, floated in-between them.

“Ah, Sir Phantom,” she said cheerily once she caught sight of him. “A pleasure to see you again.”

“Uh, yes, um. Right.” He shot a wide-eyed look at Sam, then Tucker, hoping that one of them would speak up. “It’s… nice to see you too, Queen Dora.”

“Oh, please.” She flapped a hand. “You know you can call me Dora.”

“Right…” He narrowed his eyes at Sam. Didn’t she tell him that _she_ would take care of it? “I’ll… remember that, Dora.”

She smiled brightly, folding her hands together. “Now, what brings you three here today? Not a social call, I assume?”

“No, sorry,” Sam said, finally taking over. She turned towards Dora. “We ran into a magical necklace, and we think it might’ve been a ghost artifact, so we were hoping to find more information about it.”

“Ah.” She nodded, her brow slightly creased. “Well, what can you tell me about it?”

“For starters, it swapped out Danny with one from a different universe.” Tucker gestured over at him, and he stiffened under the new scrutiny of the ghost queen. “Or, well, technically _he_ was the one who ran into it and swapped with _our_ Danny.”

“Is that so?” Her eyes softened slightly, but lingered on him for a long time. “You are not _my_ Sir Phantom? I’m sorry for the confusion, then.”

“Uh, yeah. Same.” He shrugged, his shoulders lifted high. “I didn’t want to trick you or whatever. I’m… just Danny. No Phantom, no ghost powers.”

“Hmm, really? Is this… Would you consider this a problem, a fault?”

He drew his shoulder up even higher. “Maybe… Why?”

“I think I might know which necklace you found, then.” She cocked her head, one finger tapping on her cheek. “I will look into it, if you wish. But it might take a while.”

“Just like that?” Tucker asked skeptically. “Based only on a body-swap?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Sir Foley, do you really think that that is a common attribute of necklaces?”

Danny laughed, startled. Tucker made a face, then nodded. “Yeah, alright, that’s fair.”

“Can you send a messenger if you know more?” Sam asked, apparently more focused that the rest of them together. “We can’t stay here for long, I’m afraid.”

“Yes, yes, of course.” She rightened herself, her hands folded together. “I’ll make haste, then.”

“Thank you, Dora.” Danny let some of the tension drain out of him, shooting her a grateful smile. “I really appreciate it.”

“It is my pleasure.” Her eyes lingered on him, like she knew something he didn’t.

* * *

“If you don’t hurry you’ll be late for school.” Jazz’s eyes on him were steady, unwavering.

He made a face back at her to cover for his slip-up. He’d forgotten to account for the fact that he had to walk to school, now. Most of the time he flew to school, and in all other cases he walked with Sam and Tucker. But he had slept in, and thus had missed his chance.

“I’m leaving already, jeez,” he said, grabbing a piece of toast. He wasn’t a fan of toast, but it was already done, and easy to eat while walking. “No need to rush me.”

“Just looking out for you, since you can’t fly.” She passed him by, ruffling his hair along the way. “Now go, or do you want me to fly you?”

“No thanks, I’ve got it.” He waved her a short goodbye, taking a bite of his toast. “See ya, Jazz!”

The door slammed shut behind him, blocking out any answer she might’ve given. Shouldering his backpack so it laid better on his back, he started walking towards school. He wasn’t late enough to call for running, but if he kept his pace a little faster than usual… well, no one around to comment, right?

“Hey man, I thought you didn’t like toast?”

Danny jerked to the side, then glared at the empty space on his right. “I don’t,” he confirmed for the apparently invisible Tucker, “But I was running late and this was the only thing I could grab.”

Tucker faded into visibility, bright purple eyes and white-rimmed glasses. “You’re running late? Seems like a perfectly good time to me.”

“That’s because you fly faster than I walk.” Danny took a bite of his toast, then dodged to the side as Tucker lunged at him. “That wasn’t an invitation to carry me, Tuck!”

“Alright, alright! No need to snap at me.” He raised his hands defensively. “Just wanted to help, man.”

“I don’t need help, I’m fine.” Another bite of dry toast. “Just need to walk a little faster than usual.”

The half-ghost version of his best friend hummed, then floated along, lying on his back. “Well, I guess I’ll fly along, then. Sure you don’t want a ride?”

“No, Tucker, I’m fine. Can’t go you bother Sam or something?”

“Bother who?” Sam floated in front of him, blocking his path, her arms crossed. Her white ponytail flared like fire, and her cyan eyes sparked dangerously.

Rather than answer, Danny shoved the rest of the slice of toast into his mouth. Smooth, Fenton.

Apparently Sam thought so too, because she huffed out a laugh and floated aside. “Yeah, I see how it is. Get going before you’re late.”

Danny nodded, speeding up his walk even further than before. Still not a run, though. Tucker and Sam now both floated along, one on each side.

Man, that really _was_ annoying. Maybe he should stop doing that to his own Sam and Tucker, back home.

“He didn’t want me to fly him, and apparently I was being annoying about it,” Tucker explained to Sam, still lying flat on his back. “Snapped at me and everything!”

“I didn’t _snap_ at you.” Danny swatted at the floating boy, not surprised when the other simply turned intangible to avoid it. “I just told you that I didn’t want to be carried.”

“You’re not gonna be late again, are you?” Sam asked, some concern in her voice. “Lancer’ll kill you if you follow up your day away by being late again.”

“It’ll be fine if I keep up this pace.” He rolled his eyes at her, quietly wondering how often this Danny was late, and _why_. It’s not like he had ghosts to fight or anything!

“Just saying. You saw how pissed he was when we were late two days ago.” She stretched, lounging comfortably in mid-air. “And you know what he’s like towards you.”

He didn’t, but he was starting to get an idea of it. “Yeah,” he told her, speeding up just a _little_ more, just in case. “But it’ll be fine, Sam, no worries.”

Before long the school appeared in sight, and he rushed through the doors and into packed halls. He dodged through the mass, ignoring the fact that some of its members were ghosts – or at least in their ghost forms – and praying that his locker and combination were the same in this universe. His ghost sense crawled from his core and into his lungs, but it stayed weak enough to remain unnoticed. No mist crawled out from his mouth – or his nose.

He stopped before his locker, starting to twist its lock quickly, lest he lose focus. Thankfully it unlocked quickly, and he bit down the cheer at things going well for once. Just as he was looking over the books and trying to remember what class he had, Sam appeared by his side, English books in her arms.

“Come on, grab your books and get going. If you’re early you might just give Lancer a heart-attack.”

“Right,” he said, taking the appropriate books out of his locker. Huh. Looked like they were reading a different book in this universe. He slammed the locker closed just as the first bell rung. “Let’s get going, then.”

She nodded, landing softly on the floor as white light washed over her. Now in her human form, looking like she normally did, she led him towards the classroom. He caught sight of more people transforming in the hallways. Must be a rule against ghost forms during class, which, actually, kind of made sense.

They reached Lancer’s classroom without too much trouble, and Sam walked in and to her usual seat without issue. When Danny tried to do the same, his core pulsed more strongly, and blue mist blew out of his mouth. He stilled, but no one seemed to have noticed.

Stepping inside, he saw what had triggered the proper ghost sense; Mr. Lancer sat behind his desk, his goatee and eyebrows white and his irises bright red. As a full-grown half-ghost, he must be powerful enough to set off his ghost sense.

“Mr. Fenton,” Lancer drawled, “How nice of you to join us again. And on time, for once? Color me surprised.”

Danny shrugged, unsure of what he was supposed to say.

“Well, go on and take your seat then.” Mr. Lancer waved a hand towards the desks. “Don’t get in the way, now.”

He huffed, but did as asked. Just blend in, Danny. Don’t draw unnecessary attention. Find out why you’re here and go home.

Slumping into a seat, he set his books down. He wasn’t sure how the lessons would go, but surely there couldn’t be _that_ much difference between this universe and his own?

* * *

He opened his locker, then stuck his head inside and just _groaned._

“You alright there, dude?” Tucker asked, stepping up next to him. “You’ve been weird today.”

“’m fine,” he mumbled back, not removing his head. It wasn’t like he could tell the guy that he was actually from a different universe and only now realizing how _crazy_ this one was. The fact that everyone was half-ghost apparently _wasn’t_ the end of the differences. Stunning. “Just… haven’t quite recovered from the accident two days ago.”

“Is that why you took a day off yesterday?” Sam leaned against the lockers on his other side, clearly curious. “No one wanted to tell us why you didn’t show up. Started to wonder if you hadn’t gotten jumped and killed or something.”

“Do you really have to be so morbid?” Tucker leaned back so he could shoot her an unamused glare past Danny, his eyes flickering purple briefly.

Danny pulled back his head, flapping a hand to stop them from squabbling. Some things never changed, he supposed. “Tucker, let her be, she’s just being goth. And yeah, had an accident in my parents’ lab, and Mom didn’t want me to come to school.”

Sam smirked at Tucker, clearly thrilled that Danny had taken her side. Tucker just stuck out his tongue in retaliation.

Rolling his eyes at their antics, Danny started putting away his stuff, letting his thoughts wander. This universe was absolutely madness. The only good thing he could think of was that, with his parents as human hunters instead of ghost hunters, ecto-contaminated food seemed to be far less common. Kind of weird, actually, considering that now everyone was half-ghost and wouldn’t die of ectoplasm poisoning if they _did_ eat it, but hey, whatever. He never liked the taste of it anyway, and it had no benefits for healthy half-ghosts like him anyway.

Blending in was actually surprisingly tough. He had thought that it wouldn’t be all that different from usual, pretending to be powerless and a normal human. But here, that made him stand out, made him a target. And honestly? He really didn’t like that.

The bullying wasn’t limited to just Dash and his cronies. Pretty much the entire student body avoided him, like touching him would drain their own powers. Everyone bit insults at him, even the teachers! Like being human was _bad_, was _lesser_.

It was a stark contrast to his normal life, where he was constantly hiding and afraid because he _wasn’t_ human. Because _ghosts_ were lesser, were dangerous manifestations that didn’t deserve to exist.

He sighed, then zipped up his backpack. Sam and Tucker both shot him worried looks, but he ignored them.

Really, the only good thing was that these half-ghosts seemed to grow in strength with time. The students were all too weak to really trigger his ghost sense, and hiding it from the teachers wasn’t too hard.

“Ready to head home, Danny?”

“Yeah.” He nodded at Sam, clicking his locker closed. “Let’s get going. I’ve got tons of homework I need to get working on.”

“At least you don’t have detention again,” she said, her voice cheery like it was a good thing. Ah, another one of those things that hadn’t changed. Back home he got detention for being half-ghost, and here he got it because he _wasn’t_ half-ghost. “So you’ve got that going for you.”

“Woo hoo. Lucky me.” He pushed through the doors of the school, ignoring the flash of light that preluded Tucker rejoining him in his ghost form.

“Man, Danny, you’re being almost as depressing as Sam,” the now-floating Tucker commented. “Cheer up.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Eh, good enough for me.” Tucker shrugged, then darted a glance at his watch. “Hey, I gotta get going. See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, sure.” They waved him goodbye, and Tucker shot off like a rocket. Man, he didn’t realize he could miss flying so much.

“So, uh…”

Danny shook his head, turning to face Sam. “You have to get going too? It’s fine, Sam, don’t worry about it.”

“Yeah, alright.” She grinned, shifting to her ghost form as well. “See you tomorrow, Danny.”

He watched her go, then heaved another sigh. A whole school day had passed, and he still didn’t know why he was here. Clockwork might be fond of vagueness, but at least he usually gave _some_ clue to what was going on. But he couldn’t dive into the Ghost Zone to find out more, either. He had no one to cover for him, and people would surely connect his ghost form with the normal Danny Fenton.

Still encompassed with these thoughts, he walked into the Fenton household without thinking. The moment he stepped inside, thick blue smoke wafted from his mouth.

And, startled, his wide blue eyes met three pairs of eyes looking back at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from Emperor’s New Clothes by Panic! At The Disco - as caught by Jeff on fanfiction.net! Also I crossed 20k while working on this yesterday so I can confirm that the full thing will be closer to 25k than the 20k I predicted. Gonna be rounding off all my stories over the next week, putting down the final chapters of both Play Your Part and Weirdward.
> 
> On a specifically PYP note, next week's chapter will release on Saturday as always, but the last two (5 and 6) will likely release on Wednesday (the 28th and the 4th). Taking over the Saturday slot, starting on the 31st, will be Weirdward!
> 
> Next week: Chapter 4 - I Am Trying To Be


	4. I Am Trying To Be

“Danny,” Jazz said, her face doing something complicated. “What was that?”

“What was what?” he replied quickly, trying to smooth his face into something casual. He hadn’t thought about his ghost sense going off around his parents. But _of course_ they would be in their ghost forms. _Of course_.

Maddie’s expression was less than impressed, and he grimaced. “Danny, honey, I thought you were worried about your ghost powers? Why aren’t you excited?”

“It’s nothing.” He shrugged, still trying for casual. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but it’s nothing-- nothing _impressive_, or anything.”

His dad laughed. “Danny-boy, no one has ‘impressive’ powers when they first get them.”

“That wasn’t--”

“Danny,” Jazz said again, her voice dropping its amusement. “Please stop denying it, it’s not healthy.”

“I’m not--” He balled his fists, driving the nails into the soft flesh of his palms. Stay _calm_, Fenton. Don’t get angry. Don’t make your eyes glow. You can still get out of it. “It’s not--”

A hand landed on his shoulder, and he jerked, startled. His mom stood next to him, now, chartreuse eyes softening. “Danny… it’s okay. You’re allowed to be excited to get your powers.”

“How long have you been doing that thing?” his dad asked, his glow brightening. “What’s been triggering it? Do you know what it is?”

“I’m--” he stammered out, but Jazz approached as well – in her human form, thankfully.

“How’re you feeling, Danny?” She crouched slightly, so she was at eye level with him. Darn her tallness. “Excited? Curious? Scared? All of the above?”

Danny growled under his breath, his hands aching from how deep he was digging his nails. He jerked around, dislodging all the hands and breaking the eye contact.

“Just-- I don’t want to talk about it!” he snapped, glaring at them.

They gasped, various shades of excitement and startlement.

“What?” he asked, backing up a step or two. Why were they so…

oh.

Oh no.

He had… he had accidentally loosened his grip on his core just a _tad_ too much.

“Your _eyes_,” his dad sniffled, breaking out in a wide grin. “Danny-boy, they’re just like your mother’s!”

“Nonsense,” Maddie denied, turning slightly to face Jack. “They’re too green. They’re a perfect middle of ours, Jack.”

Oh no. He’d really screwed up now.

Like, on one hand, this was better than getting caught with his own parents. Unlike his own ghost-hating parents, these guys are not only _okay_ with it, they were actually _expecting_ it. They were genuinely happy and excited that he was half ghost!

But… but that’s the problem. He isn’t _their_ Danny. And when – and it _will_ be when, not if – when he swaps back, the other Danny is… well, screwed. Unless he can somehow gain the powers he was supposed to have but doesn’t…

Was that why they were swapped? Because his own universe had already given him ghost powers once, so it can do the same for this powerless Danny?

Surely not? Sam and Tucker had already gone through the accident once with him. There was… there was no way that they would do it again, right? Especially if there were no guarantees that this Danny would survive, too.

A pointy elbow dug into his shoulder, and Danny snapped out of his thoughts to see Jazz leaning on him. Her expression was soft, lips quirked into just barely a smile. “What are you thinking about?”

He hummed, noncommittally. “Just… things, I guess.”

“Excited to finally have your ghost powers?” She jostled him a little, playfully. “Remember, no using them to get back at bullies, Danny!”

“I wouldn’t dare!” he assured her, raising his hands placatingly. He’d already tried that once, anyway. Well, more than once. A lot of times. But using your powers against a powerless human was _very_ different than using them against a fellow half-ghost…

“Yeah, uh huh.” Her expression clearly said that she wasn’t convinced. “You’re all still young, anyway, and you just barely got your powers. That would be like picking a fight you couldn’t hope to win, Danny. And you know better than that.”

The snort that slipped out at that was entirely involuntary. Him, picking fights he couldn’t win? No, he would _never_, sir!

Jazz rolled her eyes, then ruffled his hair. Her smirk made it clear that she knew he hated that, but… it was nice. This… this acceptance, this playfulness around his powers. He was used to it from Jazz, to some extent, but…

It just… it felt more _right_ here, now. Not having to worry about hiding it from his parents. And it wasn’t… it wasn’t some dark thing, here, caused by a terrible accident with a dangerous machine. There were no injuries, no fighting against ghosts bigger and stronger than him…

It just _was_. It was just how things _are_, here.

“If you get into trouble, I’m not helping you.” Jazz stepped back a little, purple ectoplasm whirling around her hand, her eyes lighting up the same color. “Until you can do this, too, you don’t stand a chance.”

He stuck out his tongue at her, pressing down on his desire to prove himself. He _could_. He absolutely could do that. But he’d already done enough damage. If he showed off, if he let them all see how powerful he really was…

There was no doubt in his mind that he was far more powerful than he was supposed to be. All these natural born halfas, they seemed to grow into their powers. Hell, most of the students didn’t even trigger his ghost sense. Even accounting for the weakening of his sense due to them being only partially ghost, that meant that they were, what? Twice as strong as the Box Ghost, tops?

That was _nothing_ compared to some of the other ghosts he fought. Skulker, Technus, hell, even Ember probably wasn’t all that much weaker than them. And that wasn’t even going into ghosts like Pariah Dark or his own evil future self.

God. He really _really_ couldn’t show of his powers, could he? Even with his powers known, he still had to hide.

Although… he supposed that the basic powers could be alright. Invisibility, intangibility… and _yes_, flying, oh, he had missed it so.

He would just have to avoid his ghost form. Everyone else seemed to dress normally. Just color-swapped versions of their normal outfits. If he was the only one who dressed significantly different in ghost form, that would raise questions, wouldn’t it? Even if his parents _did_ dress in the same hazmat suits.

A heavy hand landed on his shoulder, and Danny automatically jerked into intangibility and away from it. His dad laughed, loud and surprised and clearly cheerfully. “There’s my boy! See, didn’t your mom and I tell you not to worry about your powers?”

Danny chuckled back. “Yeah… Yeah, I guess. Sorry for, uh, doubting you.”

“We’ll call you in sick tomorrow, too,” his mom added from his other side. Her eyes were soft and warm, and he could almost ignore how strange it was, to see her with irises that weren’t violet. “So you won’t have to worry about anyone picking on you for still learning to control your powers.”

“Oh.” He hadn’t even thought about that. Was it normal for these people to get their powers in control so quickly? He’d spent weeks hoping not to get caught, and they… they just took a _day_? “Um, yeah. Thanks, Mom.”

She pressed a kiss to his temple, her skin just a little cooler than his own. He finally understood why everyone always commented on that while he was Phantom. “Of course, sweetie. And if you need us to help you or explain anything…”

“Right, uh. I’ll… keep that in mind.” They were just so… so _nice_. They were trying so hard to help him!

Couldn’t… couldn’t his own parents be more like this? None of the… the hatred of ghosts, of the stone-cold conviction that ghosts were evil creatures and that half-ghosts couldn’t possibly exist…

Just… acceptance?

Oh, but it wouldn’t last anyway, would it? If these guys found out that he wasn’t _their_ Danny, then surely they wouldn’t… they wouldn’t be as nice, would they? Because he had replaced their son, had made them think he finally got the powers they were so excited about?

Maybe he would just… never switch back? Was that why he was here? Because this was here he was _supposed_ to be, from the start? Another half-ghost in a universe full of them?

* * *

“Danny,” Jazz said, her tone hard to read. “I heard back from Dora.”

“Oh?” He perked up, looking up from his homework. It was interesting, to see how different things were in this universe. And! No bashing of humans, of people like him, in any of his work! Lancer had been genuinely _excited_ to see his finished homework! “About the necklace?”

“Yeah. Can you call Sam and Tucker so we can talk about it with all of us present?”

“Uh, sure, hold on.” He dug out his phone, buried under loose sheaves of paper. “Do we need some kind of excuse, or…?”

“Nah, they can let themselves in.” Jazz shrugged, sitting down on the edge of the bed. She wasn’t looking at him, but at the homework he had surrounded himself with. “Mom and Dad probably won’t even notice. If we need to get into the lab we’ll need to get them out, first.”

“And you think that that’ll be necessary?” He frowned, considering this. He supposed it made sense. His own parents already spent a lot of time in the basement lab, and _of course_ they would spent even more time there, in a universe where the thing they hunted was already known to exist.

“Probably.” She shrugged. “Somehow things always come down to their tech, when we’re dealing with ghosts. It’s how… Danny… hunts ghosts, too. He can fight them all he wants, but to get them back to the Ghost Zone he needs to rely on the Fenton Thermos.”

He made a face at her as he unlocked the phone, scrolling through his contacts to get to Sam and Tucker. “A thermos, really?”

“Not just _a_ thermos, _the_ Thermos.” She puffed out her chest, doing a bad impression of their dad. “The _Fenton_ Thermos!”

Danny snorted, then finally reached the contact he was looking for, and dialed. Sam answered quickly.

“_Heard back from Dora?”_ she asked the moment it connected.

“Uh, yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck, caught off-guard by how… how she immediately jumped in. “Jazz wanted me to ask you and Tucker over so we could discuss it.”

“_I’ll bring Tucker,” _Sam assured him, then hung up.

He blinked at the phone in hand, dumbly. What had just…

“Ah, they’re on their way?” Jazz said, tone knowing. “Good, good. I’ll hold off from telling you what I know until they’re here, then. Won’t be long.”

“Right. I knew that. They can… fly… oh.” He cleared his throat, ignoring the blush that crept to his face. “Right, no flying. How fast is it on foot?”

“They’re not on foot, Danny, they’ve got scooters.” Then Jazz jerked her head away from where she’d been looking at his homework. “Wait, don’t they have any kind of transportation besides flying in your universe?”

“Not… really?” He shrugged at her incredulous expression. “Everyone can fly, anyway, and most can fly at high speeds. What else would we use?”

“Well, what do _you_ do? Walk everywhere?”

He shrugged again, turning his head down. “Well, yeah?”

“Oh.” The sound was long, drawn out and weary. “That’s… unfortunate. I’m sorry, Danny.”

“It’s alright. Not your fault.” He played with the paper in front of him, then looked up again. “I don’t blame you for being curious, anyway. It’s interesting, seeing how things are different between my universe and this one.”

“Is that why you’re so interested in this homework?” She smiled, gesturing at all the books. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen Danny work on his homework voluntarily.”

He gasped, faux-offended. “What a crime! He gets a chance to do schoolwork that _doesn’t_ insult his state of existence, and he doesn’t even take it? Awful!”

She snorted, then dissolved into actual laughter. “You sound like _me_,” she said in-between cackles, “Danny would be so annoyed!”

“What, because the teachers are gonna expect him to do well?” He smiled as he straightened the work up again, preparing to clean it up. “Or to try, at least, since I bet I wasn’t doing well with my wrong-universe knowledge anyway.”

“Well, _that_ isn’t your fault anyway.” She reached over to help him clean up too. “But yeah. He’s kinda been turning his reputation in something where he’s doing so bad that most teachers don’t try correcting him anymore. Now he’s gonna have to start all over again.”

“Oh no, poor him,” he said, keeping his tone light. “The _expectations_ are simply too much for his poor half-ghost mind.”

She shot him a look, too heavy for the conversation they’d been having. One that clearly said, _I know what you’re not saying, Danny_. But she didn’t comment on it, and for that, he thanked her. Mentally, of course.

Footsteps on the stairs, two pairs, one heavy and clunky and the other just heavy.

“Ah, and there’s Sam and Tucker,” Jazz said, offering him the books she had picked up. “See, I told you it wouldn’t take long for them to get here.”

“Right.” He took the paperwork from her hands, then dumped them all in his backpack next to the desk. “About as fast as flying, then.”

“Really?” Tucker asked as he entered the room, having apparently caught the tail-end of their conversation. “Our scooters can barely keep up with Danny, usually.”

He shrugged at the other two as they came in, then closed the door. “Young half-ghosts aren’t very strong or fast, and you two-- or they, I guess-- aren’t usually flying at top speed.”

“That makes sense,” Sam allowed as she rolled his desk chair out and sat down on it. “And as fascinating as that is, could we maybe focus on the news? What did you hear from Dora, Jazz?”

“Right, well.” She cleared her throat, straightening her spine as if shifting into a more focused persona. “Apparently the necklace is, indeed, a ghost artifact. Its origin is unclear, but its purpose _is_ known: it balances the different dimensions, or universes or timelines or whatever you want to call it.”

“So it… swapped me here to… to balance things?” Danny frowned, considering this. “So it _is_ a thing of me being human and your Danny being half-ghost, and now we match our universes?”

“I don’t think it’s that straight-forward.” Jazz twirled a strand of her hair, turning to look at him. “Obviously the research isn’t foolproof, but from how Dora said it, it sounded more like it was ‘fixing’ things. Like you were supposed to swap back once the universes were balanced properly again.”

Danny gestured aggravatedly. “What, so I’m just supposed to _spontaneously_ develop my ghost powers after all?”

“Well, not spontaneously, maybe…” Sam said, slowly, one finger tapping on her cheek as she thought. “But we already gave _our_ Danny ghost powers. Not once but _twice_. So why couldn’t we do the same to you, too?”

“Twice?” Tucker repeated, one brow raised. “What do you mean, _twice_? What’d I miss?”

She flapped a dismissive hand. “Eh, don’t worry about it. Just some thing with Desiree. Anyway, Danny, what’d you think about that? Want to try it?”

He blinked. “Um. Is that… a trick question?” If it was, he wasn’t sure he knew the right answer. Of course he wanted the powers he was supposed to have, but… Sam was so big on individualism, on being who you are and not changing that to fit in. Wouldn’t that be exactly what he was doing, if he accepted the offer to become half-ghost?

“It doesn’t matter if he wants them or not,” Tucker pointed out, apparently deciding to bypass that whole mess of a conversation, “since we don’t know why he _doesn’t_ have them, if he’s supposed to. Isn’t everyone in that universe born half-ghost? Why wasn’t Danny?”

“I… don’t know,” he admitted, rubbing his neck. “I mean, you’re born half-ghost but you generally can’t really use your powers until you’re older. They get stronger as you grow, you know? And can you imagine trying to take care of a baby that can turn invisible and intangible on command?”

Jazz snorted. “A good point. So you just… never grew into your powers? Or have you never had even the smallest inclinations of them?”

“Not that I… know?” He frowned, digging through his memory. “I mean, I must’ve, right? If my parents are so certainly that I’m half-ghost, then I must’ve shown _some_ kind of potential. But if I _have_, it was so long ago that I can’t remember.”

“Well, if our universes are so similar, maybe _that_ is mirrored from our Danny, too?” Tucker suggested, fingers rattling on the edge of his PDA as he thought. “_Our_ Danny had an accident that gave him ghost powers, so maybe… maybe _you_ had an accident that lost you your powers? Is that possible?”

He opened his mouth to refute it. Then paused. Closed his mouth again.

“I… think it might be, actually.” He took his hand off of his neck again, laying it down in his lap. “I can’t really… remember? It was really long ago, but I think…. I think I had one when I was young?”

“What, with the Portal? Way back then?” Jazz looked downright _offended_. “They let you near that while you were so young?”

“What? No!” He waved his hands around, dismissing it. “No, no, no. I think I had an accident with one of their normal human-hunting inventions. I can’t really remember its name… the, uh, Human Trapper? Mortal Snare? Something like that, at least.”

Sam and Tucker shared a meaningful glance. “The Ghost Catcher,” they stated in perfect sync.

“The what?” Danny considered it, though. It _sounded_ like it could be a ghost equivalent of the same invention. “I mean, maybe? It sounds like it could be the same thing, yeah. What is it supposed to do?”

“In this universe? It… oh.” Jazz’ eyes grew wider as she caught on too. “It removes ghostly influence from objects or people. Like… it’s supposed to remove all ectoplasm from a non-ectoplasmic subject.”

“And for Danny? It split him in separate human and ghost selves,” Tucker added, flipping through his PDA as if searching for something. “Like, a fully human and a fully ghost version of him, at the same time.”

He held out the device, now, showing Danny what he’d been looking for. On the screen was a photo of, indeed, two identical versions of him. Only one was human, black hair and blue eyes and regular clothes, while the other was a ghost, with white hair and green eyes and a black jumpsuit.

“Oh.” Danny tore his eyes off of the screen again. “I mean… I’m not sure what ours was supposed to do, since my parents gave up on it after my accident, but. I guess it might’ve done something similar?”

“And if it purged your ectoplasmic ‘contamination’, that would explain why you never got your powers.” Jazz nodded. “You purged your ghost side before it got a chance to develop into something strong enough to maintain a form of its own, hence why you can’t just re-fuse with it.”

“So we _do_ need to give him powers again?” Sam smirked, leaning down to grab the backpack she’d brought. “We’ll need access to the lab, then.”

Jazz made a face. “Yeah, I guess you will. I’ll go lure away my parents, you guys make up a game plan. I’ll text…” She looked between them. “I’ll text Danny when I’m sure they’re gone, and then I’ll join you guys as soon as possible, okay?”

“Sounds good to me,” Danny agreed, pulling his phone closer. “Good luck, Jazz, and… thanks.”

“Thank me by getting better,” she said, patting his knee. “You’re great, Danny, but… I want my brother back.”

* * *

Danny looked at the giant metal arch in front of him, his fingers twisting in the fabric of his shirt. “And you’re… sure about this?”

Sam hummed from where she was fiddling with some kind of control. “It worked the last two times, and it’ll work this time, too. Are _you_ sure you don’t want the jumpsuit?”

“I mean, no one wears different clothes in their ghost forms where I’m from.” His voice echoed back at him from the empty tunnel. Dully, he wondered if that was what he would sound like as a ghost. “So I’m sure this’ll be fine.”

“I still don’t know what you mean with the whole ‘twice’ thing, Sam,” Tucker commented from where he was standing in the middle of the lab. “It’s not like Danny could’ve gotten his powers twice over.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Sam dismissed. She stepped back from the control panel, looking it over critically. “Alright, I think it’s ready. Are you, Danny?”

He bit down his automatic first reaction – ‘_is anyone ever ready to embrace part-death?’ _– to summon as much confidence as he could muster. “As ready as I’ll be, I guess.”

“You remember what you’re supposed to do?” She joined Tucker in the center of the room, stuffing a photo in the backpack she’d left there.

“What, step inside and hit the button?” He huffed out an unamused breath. “Not that hard to remember, is it?”

“Just making sure.” She straightened up again. “Nerves can make you stupid, and all that. Well, go on then.”

“Right.” He turned forwards again, facing the deactivated Portal in front of them. “Just… go in and turn it on. Easy.”

He lifted up his foot, ready to step into the metal tunnel, when--

A shriek from the lab entrance.

Danny jolted backwards, whirling around. Jazz stormed down the stairs, eyes fiery. The effect wasn’t lessened by the fact that they didn’t glow violent purple as usual, against his expectations.

“_What_ are you three doing?!”

“We’re… giving him ghost powers again?” Tucker tried, apparently also shaken by Jazz’ anger. “The way we did it for Danny?”

“So you’re repeating the accident that almost killed him once?!” she snapped at him, gesturing at Danny and the Portal. “And, what, just hoping that it’ll go okay this time too?!”

“Well, he already had powers once, right?” Sam shrugged, remaining cool under the fury that was now aimed at her. “So of course his body will just accept them back.”

Jazz hissed. Actually, straight-up _hissed_, in anger. “If his body is fundamentally _different_,” she ground out, slow and heavy, “then it would make sense that there is a _less dangerous way_ of doing this. Right?”

“Can’t you, I don’t know, test it?” Danny tried, stepping away from the Portal. He wanted his powers, yes, but the invention quite frankly scared him. It felt… dangerous, somehow. Like he knew, on some deep instinctual level, that another version of him had almost died there. “To see if I’ve got signs of ghostliness in me, still?”

Sam and Tucker shared a glance. Then Tucker said, carefully, “I mean… I guess that that’s a better idea, yeah. We can compare your stats to those of our Danny.”

Convinced that they had dropped the Portal plan, Jazz relaxed a little. “And you really didn’t think of that before now?”

“Well, this is kind of our go-to, I guess?” Sam shrugged, moving to the Portal to safely turn it on again. “It’s how he got them the first time, and then when Desiree removed them I replicated the accident, too. We know it works, so it makes sense, right?”

Danny made a face at Tucker, and the boy laughed back. “Felt dangerous, though,” he told him, quietly.

“Yeah?” Tucker pulled open one of the desk drawers, pulling out a strange machine Danny couldn’t place. Definitely FentonWorks tech, though, in silver and glowing green. “Could you sense it, somehow?”

“I guess.” Danny reached to accept the machine, but Tucker grabbed his wrist to drag him over to a table instead. “What, uh, are we doing?”

“It’s like an X-ray,” Jazz explained, joining them. “But for ghosts. It’ll show us if you’ve got traces of ectoplasm in you, still.”

“Oh.” He let them force him onto the table so he laid flat on his back. “Do I have to take my shirt off, or…”

“Nah, the machine can filter out the trace ectoplasm it’ll contain.” Tucker placed the invention on Danny’s chest, extending its legs so it stood on its own. “You know how an X-ray works?”

Danny snorted. “It’ll take a picture, yeah? Anything I have to worry about?”

“Just stay still and it’ll be fine.” Tucker pulled a panel on the side loose, revealing a cord with a button on the end. He waited until Sam rejoined them, then he turned back to Danny. “You ready?”

“Sure?” He forced himself to lay as still as possible, waiting for the photo to happen. The machine hummed and buzzed, then suddenly spat out a piece of paper from one end.

“Oh,” he said, feeling a little let down. He had expected to, like, feel it work? Or something. “Well, uh. How does it look?”

Tucker peered at the picture, then showed it to Sam and Jazz. They all remained silent, staring and pointing at it.

“Guys?” Danny tried again, not wanting to jostle the machine and risk it falling. “How is it?”

The three of them snapped their attention back to him, then shared a glance. Finally Tucker held out the picture so Danny could see.

“See for yourself, dude.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's title is from Paradise Lost by Hollywood Undead. For maximum effect, imagine "What you're dying to see" stuck on the end. ;) I've finished writing (+ editing) Play Your Part now, so I can confirm that the total word count will be almost 25k! Which is a pretty respectable word count, I think, for a 6 chapter story.
> 
> Half-ghost Danny is in mope town, meanwhile human Danny is having the time of his gosh darn life. I really do love writing the differences between their universes.
> 
> Also, as a reminder! Next chapter releases on **Wednesday, August 28th**, and the last one is uploaded on **September 4th** (the Wednesday after). The Saturday slot will instead be filled with Weirdward for the next... several months.
> 
> Next time! Chapter 5 - Not Only Will I Soar Again


	5. Not Only Will I Soar Again

Danny’s eyes watered as he reached out. One hand, shaky with emotion, made contact with the picture. Ultimate proof that it was… that this was _real_.

“Is-- Is that--”

“A ghost core?” Tucker grinned wider. “That’s exactly what it is, yeah.”

“But then…” Danny frowned, one hand still on the core on the photo, the other reaching for his chest. “Why isn’t it… working, then? If I have the core, why don’t I have the powers?”

“Well, we can’t know for sure, of course, but…” Jazz placed one finger on the photograph as well, tapping the core. “This isn’t an _active_ ghost core. We have pictures of Danny’s, and of a few regular ghosts, and this one looks even less active than Danny’s when he’s in human form.”

“Oh.” One hand still rested on his chest, as if he could feel the core’s hum now that he knew it existed. “How? Why?”

“We already figured that you lost your powers because you purged your ectoplasmic contamination, right?” Jazz shrugged, gently pulling the photograph out of his hand. “In doing so you must’ve run your core out of ectoplasm, forcing it into some sort of hibernation. I think, if we can carefully feed it ectoplasm again, that it might activate again.”

“And that’ll get me my powers again?” Danny brightened up slightly, hope unfurling in his chest. It sounded… it all sounded very possible. Would it just be that easy?

“Well, probably. Like I said, we can’t know until we try.” Jazz sighed, placing the photo on the table Danny was sitting on. “At least I know a good way to get you ectoplasm in a somewhat safe manner.”

“Oh lord, Jazz, you want him to eat--” Tucker made a disgusted face, pretending to vomit. It wasn’t very encouraging, to be honest.

“Oh grow up.” She shoved the boy, turning to Sam, who looked far more steady. “Sam, can you go fetch some of the leftovers in the fridge? You know how to recognize the right ones, yeah?”

“If they try to bite me they’re good.” Sam nodded, turning around like she hadn’t just said that _food might actively attack her_, hello? What the hell was going on here?

Danny cleared his throat, drawing Jazz’ attention back to him. “What’s, uh. What this ‘safe manner’ of ectoplasm consumption?”

“Well, it’s.” She blushed, twirling a strand of hair as she tried to find the right words. “Uh, you know how in this universe, our parents are ghost hunters?”

“Uh huh,” he said, slowly.

“And ghosts are made out of ectoplasm. Which means that for their inventions, they do a lot of experiments with said ectoplasm, including ways to use this to make food faster?”

“Oh.” He still didn’t understand where she was going with this.

Jazz opened her mouth to explain further, but a strange hissing sounded by the stairs, and Danny twisted to look at that instead. Sam was coming down, her arms full of various plastic containers, some of which were _duct-taped shut_.

“Got the leftovers you asked for. Is the malevolence directly related to how heavily contaminated they are?”

“I think so.” Jazz shrugged, releasing her hair. “Not sure. Mom and Dad never really looked into it much.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Danny waved his hands around, drawing the attention of everyone else back to him. He ignored the jostling of the plastic bins for the moment. “You want me to eat… contaminated food? _Living_ food?”

“Well, it’s not _living_, technically.” Jazz wiggled her hand a little, making a so-so motion. “They’re kind of… reanimated, I guess? We’re starting off slow, with the stuff that just glows. Anything that moves we’ll re-cook first.”

“Like the weenies,” Tucker added helpfully, taking one especially violent container from Sam. The duct-tape on it seemed to strain to hold it closed, and through the plastic Danny could see sausage-like shapes bouncing around. “These are definitely some of the worst in the fridge.”

“Yeah, and the fact that they’ve been in there for months hasn’t helped.” Sam shook her head, moving over to the table to put down the other stuff. “Anyway, don’t worry about it, Danny. _Our_ Danny can eat this stuff just fine, and so can any ordinary ghost. We’re not giving it to you until we’re sure you’ve got enough ghost in you to do the same.”

“Oh. Um.” He looked at the boxes that now shifted over the table, driven by the force of their contents. “Thanks, I guess?”

“Don’t thank us until it works, man.” Tucker placed his one container on the table as well. When it immediately threatened to throw itself off again, he placed a heavy-looking invention on top of it. “Seriously, if we make you eat this stuff and it doesn’t work you’ll hate us.”

“Tucker, stop discouraging him,” Jazz scolded, picking up one of the containers that lacked duct-tape. “Danny, it’ll be fine. Mom and Dad and I have eaten this stuff on multiple occasions, and you’re _supposed_ to have this stuff in your body. Do you really think I would be giving this to you if I thought it would be a problem?”

“No,” he said, “but this wouldn’t be the first time you’ve tried feeding me something weird as a big sister prank.”

Jazz made a face, then nodded. “Ah, I guess that that’s fair.” She opened one box, showing its contents to him. “How do you feel about starting with these mildly glowing carrots?”

Bad, he wanted to say.

“I guess they’re… okay?” he said instead, taking the bin from her. They did, indeed, look like regular carrots. Y’know, if carrots came in ecto-green and glowed. “Do I… have to?”

“You can try the Portal too, if you prefer that,” Sam suggested, leaning against the table. “Get it over with in one quick swoop.”

Danny made a face, then shoved one baby carrot into his mouth. The moment he bit down he pulled a face. It tasted like what he imaged raw ectoplasm might taste like; copper and rusted pennies and something like lemons? Except it still had a mild taste of carrot, and its texture was mostly carrot-like. Mostly, because it was just a little goopy on the inside.

He slapped his free hand over his mouth, trying to push away his desire to puke. Come on Danny, just _bite_ through it!

Swallowing, he made another grimacing face at the others.

“Ah, come on, they’re not that bad.” Jazz clicked her tongue, shaking her head disapprovingly. “How is it that you guys in the halfa-universe are _less_ used to eating ectoplasm infused food, huh? Am I the only one wondering about that?”

“No, I was too,” Sam admitted, looking far too amused for Danny’s liking. “And I bet our Danny is, too. He’ll definitely be enjoying the break where he doesn’t have to worry about his lunch coming to life.”

Danny sighed, placing the carrots down again. “Can I try something else? Maybe that’ll be better.”

Tucker snorted disbelievingly, but to his credit, did push one of the other boxes towards Danny. “Here, I think this one is just glowing toast.”

“Ugh, toast.” He pulled off the lid, revealing, indeed, several slices of ecto-green toast. “Well, can’t be worse than regular toast, right?”

He took a bite of one of the slices. Wow, hey, that’s actually _worse_ than regular toast, who would’ve thought? Again that taste of copper and lemons and sour metal, although the inside wasn’t quite as soft as with the carrots. Just felt like untoasted bread instead of goop.

“Well?” Tucker asked, a grin on his face again. “Better or worse?”

“Better than the carrots,” Danny said as he swallowed the bite. “And honestly? Not much worse than regular toast.”

“You want jam or something with that?” Sam asked, turning one of the slices in her hand as she looked it over. “That might mask the taste a little.”

“Hm, maybe.” He took another bite, trying to chew it away quickly. “Egh, yeah, let’s give that a shot if you’ve got some.”

“I’ll go look,” Jazz said, ruffling his hair as she passed him by. “Sam, Tucker, stay out of trouble.”

“Trouble?” Tucker gasped dramatically. “We would never!”

Danny shot him an unimpressed look as he chewed away another bite of sour toast. “You two literally tried to zap me with a giant ghost portal while she was away.”

“Don’t get involved, Fenton.” Tucker swung a finger in his direction. “Eat your toast and shut up.”

“Yes sir.” He took another bite of the toast. Against all expectations, he was actually kind of getting used to the taste of ectoplasm-infused food. It felt kind of warm in his throat, like it was melting as he chewed it away.

He’d finished his first slice of toast when Jazz reappeared downstairs, carrying a few types of jam and some margarine. “Wasn’t sure what would go best with, uh, ectoplasm,” she said, blushing a little. “What do you want to try first?”

“Margarine, I guess?” He shrugged, picking up a new slice of toast to butter it. “I think I just had to get used to the toast, anyway. It’s not too bad anymore. Kind of nice, actually? Warm and melty.”

Jazz frowned, sharing a glance with Sam and Tucker. “Warm? Ectoplasm is cold and goopy, usually.”

“Oh.” Danny took a bite of his still-unbuttered toast, tasting it carefully. “No, it definitely tastes warm. Like, pleasant warm, like honey?”

“Maybe that’s what it tastes like for half-ghosts?” Tucker suggested, his brow creased in consideration. “They _are _made out of the stuff, so of course it wouldn’t feel cold to them.”

“Does that mean it’s working?” Danny asked as he started buttering the toast. The taste of lemon and metal hadn’t gone away entirely, and he wasn’t too hot on it still. “If I just keep eating enough toast, that’ll fix my core? It’s really just that easy?”

“I mean, you’ll probably have to move on to something stronger eventually.” Sam tapped on one of the taped boxes, ignoring the way it jerked in response. “Danny has _a lot_ of ectoplasm in his body, usually. If you want to recover all of that in a short time, you’ll need to eat more ectoplasm and less actual food. There’s only so much food you can eat before you’re full, after all.”

“Right.” He took a bite of buttered toast. Not bad, actually. The butter definitely offset the sourness, even if wasn’t entirely functional against the taste of copper. “So when should I switch, if the higher amounts could be dangerous?”

“Finish off all the toast first, then we’ll see.” Jazz looked distastefully at the weenie-container, which seemed to be trying to throw off the heavy weight that pinned it down. “Honestly, we might try roasting the weenies. They’re definitely the highest in ectoplasm to food ratio, and they won’t fill much either way.”

Danny eyed the box suspiciously. Then, rather than speak up about the fact that these hot dogs might just be the most dangerous thing in the lab, he took another bite of toast.

“We, uh, should probably get them roasting sooner than later, then.” Tucker leaned down next to the box, his frown deepening. “I think that they’re trying to chew through the plastic.”

“Do you think the Thermos would work on them?” Sam asked, her tone light as if this was perfectly normal. “Or are they not ghostly enough?”

“That might just suck out all the ectoplasm and leave behind the weenies.” Jazz sighed, stepping away to dig through some equipment. “If they break out, just trap them in something metal. Or, like, trap them in a box with something else and let that distract them. I’ll look for something moderately safe to cook them with.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Tucker declared cheerfully, frown gone again. He picked up a larger plastic bin, opening it and peeking inside. “Ah, non-sentient ham. That should keep them occupied if they break out.”

Sam sighed and shook her head, but didn’t comment. Danny shoved another piece of toast inside his mouth. If she didn’t want to comment, neither did he.

But, really. How was this world so much crazier than his own world? Is this what their planet would be like if it was ruled by humans instead of half-ghosts? Crazy. Maybe they really _were_ still out there somewhere, surviving unseen thanks to their sheer insanity.

“Well, so, most of the stuff I found I wouldn’t trust around food,” Jazz said plainly as she rejoined them. In one hand she held a metal pot, the inside stained a suspicious mix of green and black. The other, she held behind her back. “I wouldn’t worry about the ectoplasm on this, except that it seems to be burned to hell and back, and I don’t think the charcoal will be any good. And I don’t trust the bunsen burners with this, either.”

She placed the burned pan on a nearby table, then swung the object in her other hand around to her front, using her other hand to hold it up as well. It looked like a weapon, but not any Danny was familiar with. Sci-fi esque, silver with glowing green accents. Round and shiny, like a cylinder with another cylinder on top. This, at least, looked kind of like the water containers on a water gun. The vivid green really just kind of reinforced this appearance.

“I don’t think I’m familiar with that one.” Sam stepped closer, twisting her head to look at the weapon. “What is it? A flamethrower?”

“Yep,” she simply said, placing it in Sam’s arms. “Here you go, I’m pretty sure you’re the best shot of all of us.”

“Tuck’s pretty good too, and you’re not too shabby either.” But as she said this, Sam shifted the flamethrower in her arms, gripping it properly. She grinned like she was absolutely _loving_ this. God, humans were scary. Danny was faintly sorry that he had ever felt lesser for thinking he was human if they were all like _this_.

Rather than get involved, he took another bite of toast and jumped off of the table. He could watch the proceedings from somewhere further away, he was sure.

Tucker lifted the machine off of the bin that contained the hot dogs, pinning the box down with his own strength instead. “I’ll count down and then dump them on the table. Got it?”

Sam, grin widening, nodded. “Got it.” She turned to gun onto Tucker, holding it steady with one finger already on the trigger. “On 3?”

“I was thinking on fire, actually.” Tucker nodded back, licked his lips, then started counting. “3. 2.”

“1,” the both of them counted in sync, muscles bunching as they got ready.

“Fire!” Tucker shouted, peeling the container open and spilling the contents onto the table, then stepping back in the same swift motion.

The hot dogs seemed thrown off by the sudden movement, sitting dazedly on the metal tabletop a long moment. They were ecto-green, glowing, and they seemed to have… eyes and pointed teeth? Yikes.

On the shout Sam had pulled the trigger, and bright flames spilled from the gun. Despite his expectations, they weren’t pure green; pink was scattered throughout the flames, and the inner column was white-hot.

The reanimated meat screeched when the flames reached them, but they were quickly silenced under the steady fire.

An unmeasurably long moment later, Sam cut off the flames. Jazz stepped forward to inspect the results, expression carefully blank. Then she smiled, expression lighting up. “Looks good to me! I think we can finally put the Frankenweenies to use.”

“Frankenweenies?” Danny repeated incredulously, swallowing his last bite of toast. “Really?”

Jazz hummed. When she turned back to him, she was holding one of the hot dogs pinched between her fingers. The flames hadn’t lessened its glow, but they _had_ turned it into a darker green. The eyes and mouth seemed to have somehow disappeared entirely. “What do you think? Does it look appealing?”

“No,” Danny said honestly, taking it from her. “But neither did the toast.”

He took a bite, chewing it experimentally. The skin was like… not like a hot dog, but more like a regular sausage? Somewhat tough, a little chewy, but not in a bad way. The inside was soft and warm and gooey, and actually kinda sweet. Like it was filled with honey.

“That’s… pretty good, actually,” he said when he swallowed it. “I mean, I don’t think it beats actual food, especially since the green is a real deterrent, but…”

“What, the glow is fine with you?” Sam scoffed, but the smile on her face didn’t leave. “Priorities, Danny.”

“Eh, the glow isn’t too out of place where I’m from.” Danny shrugged, taking another bite of the hot dog and swallowing it. “With all the half-ghosts and stuff. My parents, especially Mom, they use telekinesis pretty often, so stuff often glows in and around the house.”

“That’s fair,” Sam decided, nodding approvingly. Her fingers drummed on the barrel of the flamethrower. “Hey Jazz, do you want this thing back or can I keep it?”

“If you get in trouble for having it I’m not taking responsibility.” Jazz crossed her arms, twisting to look at Sam. “My parents will just blame its disappearance on a ghost anyway.”

“Nice.” Sam flipped a switch on the side, and the glowing elements dulled down. A safety switch, then. “I’ll find a spot for it, don’t worry.”

“I’m not,” Jazz said, just as Danny hiccuped. _Loudly_.

“Sorry,” he apologized, hiccuping again. Something in his chest rattled strangely. “I think something didn’t go down right.”

He clenched his eyes closed, dropping the half-eaten sausage back on the table. His other hand came up to claw at his chest. Something felt wrong, it hurt, it _hurt_\--

Another hiccup, following with a _thrum_ in his chest. He opened his eyes again, staring wide-eyed at his friends, his sister, hoping for some sort of help or advice or--

“Look!” Jazz exclaimed, enthusiastically. “See, I told you it would be fine!”

“Fine?!” Danny bit back, his voice peaking up high as a hiccup burst through the last half of the word.

“Well, yeah, obviously.” Jazz gestured at him like it was an explanation. “See, and your eyes brightened even further. Must be your core.”

Tucker frowned, looking a little concerned. “Are you alright, dude? Besides the hiccuping, obviously.”

Danny groaned back, his fingers digging into his chest even more. His core? Was that what this was? Why did it-- “Why does it _hurt_?”

“It’s not… supposed to.” Jazz darted closer, suddenly, kneeling a little to look at his face. She pried his hand off of his chest, placing her own there instead. “Maybe it’s because it was out of energy for so long? Like when you boot up a machine after it’s been off for really long, and it sounds like it’s struggling to get functional again?”

“Or like when your muscles hurt way more if you haven’t been active in a while?” Sam suggested, tone not as jubilant anymore. “That could be it, yeah. Should we hold off and give it time to work through it, or should we try feeding it more energy?”

“I don’t know,” Jazz said, slowly. “Danny, do you think you could eat?”

“Dunno.” He huffed, feeling faintly breathless. It felt like something was burrowing in his chest, trying to shove all his organs aside to make room for itself. “Maybe.”

“Alright, that’s a no in Danny-speak.” Jazz took him by the arm, gently tugging him towards a table. “Sit down, tell us if it gets worse.”

He nodded, letting her shove him onto the table. He tried clawing at his chest again, but Jazz swatted his hand away and he gave up.

It was hard for him to tell how much time passed. For most of it, he had his eyes closed, focusing exclusively on the feeling in his chest. As the pain receded, he started to feel his core more clearly. It was pulsing, thrilling and humming in his chest. Like a heart, but also… not? It was clearly trying to drag in energy, awake but not… not satisfied, he didn’t think.

Once it felt as stable as it would get, he opened his eyes again, looking at his best friends as his sister. “It, uh. I think it’s done. But I don’t think that it has all the power it needs, still.”

Jazz nodded, a thoughtful expression on her face. “Didn’t think so. But we got it enough energy to wake up, so if it’s functional we can try feeding ectoplasm straight to your ghost form.” She started, looking at him somewhat guiltily. “If you’re okay with that, of course.”

“I mean… sure? Assuming that I _can_ shift right now.” He shrugged, then settled one hand on the back of his neck to rub it.

“Do your parents have some of that Ecto-Dejecto still?” Sam asked, turning towards Jazz. “Danny uses it sometimes when he’s really _really_ out of energy, but I think he stockpiles it all in his walls.”

“Oh yeah, that’s a good idea.” Jazz perked up, gesturing at one of the nearby drawers. “I think they have some in there?”

Sam hummed, moving to search it. “Worst come to worst, we can try having Danny search through his own walls. If, uh, he can maintain that kind of intangibility, that is.”

He made a face, not that she could see. “Yeah, let’s not risk that.”

“Oh, wait, here it is already.” Sam straightened up, a tube of unnaturally bright ectoplasm in her hand. “We just need a needle, and for Danny to shift into his ghost form.”

“At least we won’t have to fight with his sleeve this time,” Tucker joked, nudging Danny. “Did you know how much of a hassle that is, to roll up the sleeves of those jumpsuits? Absolutely awful.”

“I’ll… keep that in mind?” He tried mentally poking his core. How _were_ you supposed to shift to your ghost form, anyway? He thought he was doing it right, but he had no way of knowing whether he was doing it wrong, or if his core just didn’t have enough energy. “When should I shift?”

“Now’s fine,” Sam said, reappearing with a worryingly large syringe. It was filled with the same fake ectoplasm as the vial before. The ‘Ecto-Dejecto’, presumably. “We’re ready if you are.”

“Oh, joy,” he muttered, stirring his core more forcibly. He tried to encourage it, tried to picture himself as the photos he’d seen of Phantom. Tried to goad it with the lure of more energy.

Then, suddenly, it was like lightning crackled _through_ him. Pure energy burst forth, sparking through his flesh and his skin but not hurting him. It formed a ring, bright and luminescent, and Danny felt like he could _cry_.

As with everyone else, with every shift he’d ever witnessed, the ring split into two. Twin halos of pure light danced over his body, inverting the colors everywhere they passed, until he was left in his black shirt and with white hair hanging down in his eyes.

“Arm,” Sam immediately commanded, like she hadn’t just witnessed something _incredible_ and _life-changing_. When he didn’t respond, Jazz grabbed it and pulled it towards Sam for him.

He was so occupied with, well, _everything_, that he didn’t even notice the needle until its contents were being pushed into his body. It wasn’t even cold, not really. Just… weird? Very energetic. His core thrilled, immediately pulling in the energy provided.

“Holy shit,” he whispered, feeling the pulse of power throughout his entire body. His core hummed so loud that he wondered if everyone else could hear it, too, like the purr of a cat. “That’s… holy shit.”

“Sounds like it worked,” Tucker commented dryly, not even bothering to hide his smile. “Feeling good, ghost boy?”

“Yeah,” he answered, breathlessly. “Yeah, _wow_. It’s like… Like this weight in my chest is _gone_, suddenly. Like I’ve been dragging around my core this whole time, like a ball and chain, and finally I’m _free_.”

“How poetic.” Sam grinned, nudging him playfully. “Want to take your powers for a spin?”

“In the lab?” he asked, already pushing off of the table. “Are you sure?”

“We train Danny’s powers here all the time,” Tucker said dismissively, flapping a hand. “And it’ll be safer here than outside.”

“Fair enough.” He bounced a little on the ground, feeling lighter than usual. He wondered how floating worked. Didn’t it come naturally to--

“Oh.” He flipped in the air, maneuvering like he’s been doing it his whole life. “Wow, that’s really fun. Now I get why everyone’s always flying everywhere.”

“I guess I should’ve seen that coming.” Jazz grinned at him. “Danny’s favorite power is flight, too.”

“I can’t blame him!” Danny exclaimed, flying a lap at moderate speed through the lab. “It’s so much fun!”

“Alright, well, let’s run through a few more powers. Hopefully establishing that your powers work will trigger the switch back.”

“Yeah,” Danny hummed, feeling his core pulse with happiness at the thought of showing his parents his powers, before a spike of dread stabbed through it. “Unless your Danny has something he needs to achieve, too.”

* * *

Danny’s eyes watered as he reached out. One hand, shaky with emotion, wrapped around his mother’s wrist. “Wait.”

“Yes, sweetie?” She crouched down in front of him, smiling softly. “What’s wrong?”

“I… I can’t.”

“Can’t what, kiddo?” His dad frowned as he, too, crouched by Danny.

“I…” He groaned, burying his face in his hands. “You’re all so _nice_.”

“Of course they are,” Jazz said, voice carefully blank. “They’re our parents. When have they ever _not_ been nice?”

“That’s complicated,” he muttered back through his fingers. They’d never _meant_ to be mean towards him, of course, but… but they’d uttered plenty of insults and threats towards Phantom. And that was… it was just hard to ignore, especially when faced with such complete and utter acceptance.

A silence fell, and Danny got the feeling that his parents and sister were sharing confused glances.

“What do you mean, son?” his dad finally asked, uncertainly. “We’ve always tried…”

I _know_.” He dragged his hands off of his face to shoot them a look that hopefully expressed how lost he felt. “You’ve been nothing but nice, I _know_. But you’re not-- _I_ am not--” He groaned again, now in frustration at himself and his trouble to put his feelings into words.

Jazz narrowed her eyes at him. “_Are_ you Danny?”

“Is he what?” his mom asked, at the same time that he shook his head. While she snapped her jaw shut, he corrected himself by nodding, then made a so-so motion with his hand.

“I’m Danny Fenton,” he finally said, giving up on his attempt at miming out an answer. “But I’m not… _your_ Danny.”

“Oh,” both of his parents chimed, perfectly synced.

“Yeah.” He dragged a hand through his eyes, wiping away the half-formed tears. “I’m… yeah. It’s, um. Complicated, I guess.”

“How?” His mom reached for him, twisting his head like she could suddenly see differences that didn’t exist before. “Why? What happened to _our_ Danny?”

“I… I don’t know. I really _really_ don’t know,” he admitted, much as it pained him. “I don’t know what’s going on, I don’t understand it. Usually if I get brought to a different timeline I’m told why, what I’m supposed to do. Not…” he gestured vaguely. “Not this.”

“And our son?” his mom repeated. “What about him?”

“I’m sure he’s fine.” Danny dragged his hand through his hair, mussing the black locks up beyond their normal mess. “Sam and Tucker and Jazz will take care of him. They’re good at that kinda stuff. They’ll catch on quickly, I bet.”

“That’s good.” His mom – this version of her – patted him on the arm. Her expression was hard to read, though. “Now, what was this about your parents, sweetie?”

“I, um.” He blushed, licked his lips. “It’s. Complicated. Like I said. They don’t… they don’t _mean_ it, they’re nice, but it’s…”

He hummed, looking at his hands in his lap. “You know how you’re all half-ghosts, and so am I?”

“Yes?” His mom frowned a little, shooting a short glance towards Jack. “Is that not… Is that a problem, back home?”

“Well, I wouldn’t know, because I never told them.” He blew out a breath, the confession making him feel lighter. Not much, but, well. A little. “It’s… You know how you’re human hunters, here? Well, _my_ parents, they hunt ghosts.”

“_Oh_,” his dad said on his other side, voice low and quiet.

“Yeah.” Danny sighed, thumbs twirling. “They, um. They’ve seen me in my ghost form, but they didn’t know it was me. I’m the only half-ghost in town, so I… fight the other ghosts? To protect the town. But they don’t see it like that. They just see an aggressive ghost causing trouble.”

“They hurt you,” Jazz stated, her voice clearly forced into neutrality to cover up her emotions. “Right? They’ve hurt you, but they didn’t know it was you because you never told them. And they don’t think of the similarities, because they don’t think half-ghosts can exist.”

He barked out a humorless laugh. “Yeah, you nailed it. They’ve, uh. Made something of a habit out of threatening and insulting ‘Phantom’ around me and Jazz. They work on their inventions in the lab and in the kitchen, and they keep going off near me, and one day--” He snapped his mouth shut, shaking off the thought.

“And you’re afraid that one day it’ll go wrong.” Light flashed as Maddie shifted back to her human form without moving. Her hand, laying on Danny’s, became marginally warmer. “You’re afraid of your parents, because they don’t know that their prey and their son are the same person.”

Danny nodded, listlessly.

“Can I offer some advice?” Jazz asked, her hand on his knee. She continued before he got a chance to answer. “Tell them.”

“What?” he frowned at her.

“Tell them,” Jazz repeated, looking from him to their parents. “You’re afraid because they don’t know that you’re half-ghost. So tell them.”

“But they-- They _hate_ ghosts.” He gestured with his free hand, leaving the one with Maddie’s hand on it. “They hate ghosts with such fervor that they’ve dedicated their life to getting rid of every single one of them!”

“Danny.” His dad caught his free hand, gently placing it down and pinning it with his own warm hand. At some point he, too, had shifted back to human form. “Danny, I don’t know how different your version of me is, but I can tell you one thing with absolute certainty. The most important thing in my life, always and ever, is my family. And that includes my son, human or ghost or half-ghost.”

“Oh,” he said, soundlessly. “But--”

“What about your sister?” his mother asked, suddenly, cocking her head at him. “You said that she would help, and Sam and Tucker. Does she know?”

“Uh…” Danny twitched at the non-sequitur. “Yeah? I mean, I didn’t tell her, but she figured it out on her own.”

“And she hasn’t recommended that you tell your parents?” this Jazz asked, brow quirked. “She didn’t comment on the secret-keeping, on the damage it could do?”

“I, well…” he sighed, letting his head hang. “She did, actually. But she’s… big on letting me tell people at my own pace. And she’s heard the vitriol my parents spit, so…”

“So she should’ve encouraged you to tell them,” Jazz insisted, more forcefully. “Danny, you need your family. You can’t hide this. Do you really think that they haven’t noticed that something changed, that their relationship somehow got damaged and they don’t even know what happened?”

“I… oh.” He looked at his hands, both covered by his parents’ hands. “I hadn’t… thought about that.”

Maddie sighed. “And I guess I didn’t think about how we might’ve done something similar to our Danny, insisting that he _had_ to be half-ghost as well.”

“Well, how about this, then,” Danny said, trying to summon his bravery a little. He could, at least, help this other version of himself, right? That’s what heroes did, and he was a hero. “You tell him that you love him, that you accept him, half-ghost or not, and I’ll tell my parents.”

“Sounds like a plan to me!” his dad boomed, his characteristic grin finally reappearing. His free hand clapped on Danny’s back. “Now we just need to figure out how to get you back!”

Danny opened his mouth to reply, but halted as a pulse of energy ripped through the atmosphere. He couldn’t tell where it came from, just felt the pure _power_ hum--

White light blinded him, energy ripping at his body, he didn’t know what was happening, and--

Then, blissfully, he passed out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Middle Finger by Bohnes, and yes I've used that same song for Disinterred as well, hush. It was a good choice here.
> 
> And yes, this thing was planned from the start. One of my first decisions was for 'human' Danny to have accidentally drained all his ectoplasm, and having him replace it by eating tainted food. It tastes alright for him for most of the chapter because his core is so hungry for it, but if he had kept it up it would've looped back to yucky again (which is how it usually tastes for other Danny).
> 
> This Saturday I'm uploading the first chapter of Weirdward, but no worries! The last chapter of Play Your Part will come next Wednesday, although it will likely be a tad later than usual. I'm going back to school for the first time in years next week, and I won't be home until 6 on Wednesday (+ dinner and stuff), so I likely won't post the chapter until that evening.
> 
> As for its title, the last chapter is Chapter 6: I Would Give Anything To Hear _(You Say It One More Time)_


	6. I Would Give Anything To Hear

When Danny opened his eyes, it was to the sight of both of his friends bending over him. Worry was clearly visible in both Sam’s and Tucker’s eyes.

He groaned, pushing himself up into a sitting position, noting the changed circumstances. Instead of the living room, where he’d been before the flash of light, he was now in the lab. And while Jazz was still here, she, too, was frowning at him.

“So did it work?” Jazz asked, eyes unwavering. “I mean, I didn’t see what it looked like last time, but…”

“How am I supposed to know?” Danny bit back, squinting at her. “It’s not like I could see more than a flash of light!”

He twisted his head, looking around the lab, then shrugged. “But I’m pretty sure so, yeah. What on Earth was up with that universe switch anyway? Have any of you guys heard from Clockwork about it?”

Tucker snorted, having settled back on his heels when Danny sat up. “Wow, for once we’re the ones in the know. You alright, dude?”

“Yeah?” he asked, hesitantly. “Why? Was the other guy doing so badly?” Then he grinned, playfully. “Or did you miss me so much?”

“Eh, he was alright.” Sam grabbed Danny by the forearm, and Tucker grabbed his other one. As they pulled him to his feet, she said, “It wasn’t Clockwork, anyway.”

“No?” Danny blinked, surprised. “Well, I guess that that explains it. Who was it, then?”

“Ghost artifact that he ran into in his own world.” Tucker shrugged at his incredulous look. “Yeah, really, that was it. Supposedly it switches people around if their universes are messed up or something, so they can get it fixed, and then they switch back.”

“I still don’t get it, though.” Jazz was still frowning, looking at Danny. “We fixed his ghost powers, but he didn’t switch back immediately. And why _our_ universe, specifically? Unless…” she trailed off, her eyes widening.

“Unless what?” Tucker glanced between her and Danny.

“Unless _our_ Danny had something to gain too,” Sam said, quietly, catching on. Her wide violet eyes settled on Danny as well. “Did you?”

He shrugged, then raised a hand to the back of his neck. “Eh, not really. I mean. I guess I promised them that I would tell my parents here about me being half-ghost?”

On either side of him, Sam and Tucker visibly stiffened. But Jazz just nodded like she had already expected that. “And that triggered the switch back? That makes sense.”

“Does it?” Sam whirled around to shoot a look at the girl, something between incredulous and glaring. “Jazz, you of all people know what his parents are like! He can’t--”

“I _can_,” Danny interrupted, holding up his hands. “Sam, calm down. Look, haven’t we already dealt with this before? In every alternative universe, timeline, whatever, every time they discovered, they were okay with it. And if Jazz, both versions of her, if they think it’s a good idea… Well, I trust her.”

“Thanks, Danny.” Jazz smiled, soft and warm. She wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “Glad to have you back.”

“Glad to be back,” he replied honestly. “Really, it was a mess over there. I thought it wouldn’t be that bad, since I’m used to hiding my ghost powers, but _man_. It sucked.”

“How’d your alternate universe parents figure out you weren’t their Danny, anyway?” Tucker asked, curiosity clear in his voice. “We figured it out pretty easily because he was a shoddy liar, but you’re used to keeping secrets.”

“Honestly?” He grinned a little sheepishly. “I may or may not have walked into the house after school and forgotten to hide my ghost sense. Two half-ghost parents in ghost mode, and a sister in human form? Definitely visible.”

“Yeah, that’ll do it.”

“But wouldn’t they have thought that you were _their_ Danny, and that you finally got your powers?” Sam cocked her head, brow creased in thought. “Instead of thinking you came from a different universe?”

“Oh, well, yeah.” He shrugged, accidentally dislodging Jazz’ arm in the process. “But they were kind of… overwhelmingly nice? So I felt bad for lying to them.”

“Oh my god, you’re a sap.” Sam laughed, nudging him. “Danny, you really told them your secret because they were too _nice_?”

“Yeah, well.” He blushed, looking away sharply. “Shut up. Are our parents home, so I can get this reveal over with?”

“Nah, I lured them away so we could fix the other Danny without intervention.” Jazz twisted her arm, looking at her watch. “They should be home soon, though. It’s getting late.”

Danny nodded. “Alright, well. Can we wait for them somewhere that isn’t the lab?”

“Yeah, I--” a text tone sounded, and Tucker quickly grabbed his phone and flipped it open. “I, uh, apparently have to go. Think you can handle this without me?”

“It’ll be fine, go.” Danny made shooing motions at Tucker. “I handled it in the different universe all alone, I can deal with it here with Jazz by my side.”

“Are you sure, Danny?” Sam nudged him, gently. “Really, I don’t mind staying.”

“No, it’s okay.” He smiled at her, trying to put in as much confidence as he could. “Really, we can handle it. Go.”

“Alright, if you insist.” She nodded and turned to the stairs, Tucker right on her heels. “Text or call us later to let us know how it went, okay?”

He nodded again, watching them go. After he heard the door upstairs slam shut, he turned back to Jazz. “Well, anyway. Wait in the living room?”

“Fine with me.”

They had barely stepped into the living room when the front door swung open.

“Danny-boy!” his dad immediately boomed, like he hadn’t seen Danny in days. Which, honestly, he hadn’t, but he didn’t _know_ that. Did he? Oh god, surely Jazz or Sam and Tucker would’ve told him if other Danny had been caught by his parents?

“Hey Dad, hey Mom.” He shot them his warmest grin, trying to inconspicuously check them for ecto-weaponry at the same time. Not visibly armed, which was probably the best he was going to get with his parents. It was hard to forget the advice of his other-universe family, them telling him that his parents had probably noticed the way he’d changed. “Can I, um, talk to you?”

His parents shared a _very suspicious_ glance, then nodded. “Of course, sweetie. Jazz--”

“Jazz stays,” he immediately cut in. Maybe a little _too_ immediately. Nervous, him? Never.

“Of course.” His mom sat down on the sofa, tugging Jack along. “Well, sit down, then.”

He nodded, sitting down in the armchair. Jazz looked at him, then their parents, and sat down next to their mom. Well, he supposed there was no easy way for her to sit with him. Plus maybe there was some kind of psychological reason for her to sit there. He wouldn’t know.

“Okay, so, um.” He folded his hands together, trying to resist the urge to rub the back of his neck. “So, first of all… Sorry for not telling you guys sooner. I… You might’ve noticed that I’ve been keeping secrets for… a while. And I didn’t… Sorry, for, um. Not telling sooner. Sorry, I’m kind of. Rambling.”

“Danny.” His dad leaned forward, the tips of his fingers barely reaching to touch Danny’s knees. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s-- Nothing is _wrong_. Well, besides the lying and the keeping secrets and--”

Jazz swatted him in the other knee and he clamped his jaw shut.

“Sorry. Uh. I don’t really… know how to say this.” He took his eyes off of his hands to look at his parents, but their worried expressions were honestly just making him feel worse. He dropped his eyes again. “Maybe it’s easier to just… show?”

At this, he shifted his eyes to Jazz. She shrugged, eloquently. “Danny, I’m not going to tell you how to do this. If you think showing them is easier, go for it.”

“Right, uh.” He pushed himself out of the seat again, taking a deep, bracing breath. “Don’t… freak out? Please?”

“Why would we--”

His mom was interrupted by the spark that burst from him, rapidly forming in a ring around his waist. The bright light swept over, the transformation fast as if driven by his own will to just _get this over with_.

“Oh,” she breathed out, wide eyes darting over him.

“Danny?” his dad asked, quieter than Danny was used to hearing him. “You…”

“Yeah.” He stood as still as he could, resolutely keeping his feet planted on the carpet instead of floating like he usually would in ghost form. “I’m Phantom.”

“But you’re not…” His mom blinked, her eyes suspiciously watery. “Are you? Did we… did we not _realize_\--”

“I kept it a secret,” he said, trying to sound as reassuring as possible. “And I’m sorry, okay, but I--”

“You_ died_.” She sniffled, the sound loud in the silence that had fallen. “Danny, you died and we didn’t even _notice_.”

“No,” he quickly said, shaking his head. “No, no, no. You’re… That’s not what happened. I’m not--” He groaned, his gloved fingers digging through his hair. “Jazz, please?”

She made a face, clearly having hoped that he would get through the conversation better. “Mom, Dad, he’s not dead. Danny is only half-ghost.”

“But that’s not…” His dad frowned, then slowly pushed himself onto his feet. He approached Danny, step by step, like he was a frightened animal. “It’s not… biologically possible. To be both.”

“It totally is, though,” Danny blurted out, because his nerves had apparently utterly destroyed his filter. “Here, wait, hold on. Let me shift back, and you can feel my heartbeat.”

“Honey, if your heart--” his mom paused briefly as light flashed, but picked it up admirably steady when he’d returned to human form. “If your heart stops while you’re… like that. That would mean that you’re constantly…”

“No, no.” He waved his hands around. “It’s not like that. It doesn’t stop, not really, but my core is stronger in my ghost form, so it’s harder to make out my heartbeat. You _can_ feel it, but it’s way harder because of the hum.”

“Oh.” She looked pale, and her nod of understanding rather jerky. “I… see.”

His dad had pulled one of his gloves off, the uncovered hand hovering near Danny’s neck. “Can I…”

“Go for it.” Danny tilted his head back a little, trying to make it easier for Jack to fit his massive hand on his neck. “It, uh, might be a tad slower than normal. But I don’t think it is, right now.”

“How so?” The warm fingers met his neck, shifting to the right spot.

“Nerves,” he simply said, a hesitant smile pulling at the corners of his lips. “You know how it is.”

“Ah, yes.” His dad cleared his throat, a little uncertainly. After a few long moments he pulled his fingers away again, his brow creased. “Yes, it seems a little slow for how nervous you look, but… there was definitely a heartbeat.”

“See, totally fine.” He turned to look at his mom, hopefully. “I swear, I’m just half-ghost. It’s not… not wrong, or damaging, or anything. Please don’t… don’t hate me.”

“Sweetie, we could never hate you.” His mom sighed but also stood up, laying a hand on his shoulder. “You’re our son, Danny, no matter what. But we were… worried. We’ve _been_ worried.”

“I know.” He ducked his head. “I know, and I’m sorry. I just thought… I thought, if I kept it a secret, that it wouldn’t hurt anybody. But I didn’t realize. I didn’t realize that keeping the secret hurt you, too, and not just me.”

“Danny, kiddo, you’re one of the most important things in my life.” His dad crouched, and when Danny looked up, their eyes met. “And this, this doesn’t change anything, okay? Ghost or human or something in-between. I love you. _We_ love you.”

He sniffled, eyes darting between the both of them. “I… I love you too.”

A massive arm wrapped around his shoulders, pulling him against his dad’s chest. The other arm pulled in Maddie, and they crowded together. “Jazz, come here,” his dad called.

“Coming, coming.” One arm lifted, briefly, and Jazz wormed her way in.

“This is… nice.” Danny laid his head against his dad’s chest, feeling his core hum happily in his chest. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you guys sooner.”

“And we’re sorry for making you feel like you couldn’t tell us.” His mom touched his face, gently, and smiled at him. “And for everything we’ve said about Phantom. Everything we’ve implied.”

“It’s alright.” He smiled back, equally warmly. “I knew you didn’t mean it.”

They stood like that for a while, the silence soft and companionable.

Then his mom said, suddenly, “And you do realize that we can’t let you keep doing this, right?”

“What?” He jerked backwards, unintentionally phasing through his dad’s arm and all of Jazz to get away. “What do you mean?!”

“This ghost hunting is dangerous, young man!” She gestured at herself and Jack. “Not to mention the impact it has been having on your education!”

“But-- But--”

“No buts!” She wiggled her finger with all her motherly force. “We’ll figure out some sort of schedule, and you can patrol with our help. But not during school, and we will need to figure out how to help maintain your ghost form, and--”

“Mom, mom.” Jazz tugged on her arm, releasing her when Maddie quietened again. “Sam and Tucker have been keeping an eye on him ever since he got his powers, and I’ve known since just a few months after that. We already have all kinds of data.”

“Oh.” She wilted a little, then nodded resolutely. “Well, of course, I hadn’t expected any different from you.”

“My ghost form can sustain itself, anyway.” Danny huffed, feeling a little miffed about the impending limitations of his freedom. That, and he just now realized that sneaking out for fun things has just gotten a lot harder. Ah well, worth it. “I just need to eat more than usual.”

His mom hummed. “Is that a subtle hint that I should get started on dinner?”

“No,” he said, right as his stomach rumbled. “… but I wouldn’t mind if you did.”

She laughed, ruffling his hair as she walked past him towards the kitchen. “Message received, sweetie.”

Maddie had been in the kitchen for mere moments when her voice rung out again. “Say, does anyone know where all the leftovers went?”

The blush that crept up on Jazz’ face was rather undeniable.

“What?” she snapped at his incredulous look. “It’s a long story, okay?”

* * *

When Danny opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was his mom leaning over him. The first thing he _thought_ was ‘oh man, I was right. The other Danny _did_ have something he needed to achieve, too’.

He groaned, pushing himself up into a sitting position, noting the changed circumstances. He was lying on the couch, with his dad and Jazz nearby as well. Strangely, everyone was in human form.

Oh god. _Had_ he shifted back to his own universe? What if the flash had simply transported him to a different one?

“Danny?” his dad asked, uncertainty clear in his voice. “You alright, kiddo?”

“You wouldn’t _believe_ what I’ve eaten today.” He made a disgusted face, even if, honestly, the ecto-contaminated food hadn’t been _that_ bad. Still, given the opportunity, he would gladly never eat it again.

“Mom is not _that_ bad of a cook, Danny,” Jazz said disapprovingly. Her eyes were narrowed, set on him like she hadn’t quite decided if he was the right Danny yet. That was fair, he thought, because he hadn’t decided yet, either.

“No, and thank the Heavens. I’ve seen enough reanimated ecto-contaminated food to last a lifetime.”

“_Ecto-contaminated_?” all three of his family members repeated, incredulous.

“I thought the other universe was without half-ghosts?” Jazz’ eyes narrowed even further, a deeply familiar – and somewhat comforting – shade of purple sparking in her irises.

“It _was_, that’s the worst part.” He flopped back on the couch, dramatically throwing out his arms. “They just had ectoplasm around everywhere! Sam cooked the semi-sentient Frankenweenies with a _flamethrower_.”

“Well, I was always a little worried about that girl,” his mom said, hesitantly. The look in her eyes suggested that she, too, hadn’t quite decided if he was the right Danny.

He snorted. “It was Jazz’ idea. Both the eating of contaminated food _and_ the flamethrower.”

“It was my idea to hand it to Sam, too?”

“Apparently she was the best shot out of you, her, and Tucker.” He shrugged, still lying flat on his back. “I wasn’t about to get in-between. Like I said, there was a flamethrower. I’m not messing with that.”

“Danny… Other Danny, their Danny, he said that he was the one fighting off all the ghosts.” His dad frowned, clearly worried. “Were things… alright, over there?”

“It was only a few days. Right?” Seeing all three of them nod, he let out a relieved sigh. “It wasn’t too bad. The only ghost I saw was the Box Ghost, and they said that he was fairly harmless. Plus you guys are ghost hunters in that universe, so. Sam and Tucker said you’d take care of it.”

His dad nodded, and a silence fell. It felt somewhat awkward, so after a long moment he cleared his throat.

“So, uh. How was the other Danny? From what I heard he was pretty good at keeping secrets, but apparently you guys figured it out anyway?”

“He may or may not have freaked out when we were too accepting,” Jazz said, carefully. “He, ah. Had a ghost sense, which went off when he came home. He might’ve gotten a little freaked out with how excited everyone was to see ghost powers from him. You.”

“Heh, yeah.” He grinned a little, hollowly. “I suppose he lasted longer than I did, anyway. I don’t think I went five minutes before Sam and Tucker figured me out.”

“I _do_ wonder how this all happened, anyway.” Maddie ruffled Danny’s hair, a thoughtful expression on her face. “I’m glad to have you back, sweetie, but I just worry. It happened once, who says it won’t happen again?”

“Well, I mean, we figured out what happened.” He sat back up, his smile growing a little more genuine. “Sam and Tucker took me into the Ghost Zone to meet with one of their allied ghosts. Apparently it was caused by a ghost artifact. Remember that necklace, Mom?”

“Oh gosh, did that cause all this?” Her eyes grew wide and guilty. “I’m so sorry, honey.”

“It’s alright.” He shrugged dismissively. “Anyway, apparently it was designed to fixate on universes that were… unbalanced? Or that had gone wrong, somehow. So my… lack of powers, that was what had caused it to activate.”

The heavy arm that wrapped around his shoulder startled him, briefly, and he looked up and met his dad’s eyes. “Speaking of which, Danny-boy… We’re sorry about our… insistence.”

“Your… insistence?” He frowned, twisting to look at his dad, then his mom. “What do you mean?”

“We… were so fixated on you being half-ghost like us…” His mother heaved a sigh. “We talked with the… the other Danny. And he mentioned that he never told his own parents about being half-ghost. Because he was afraid of how they would react, of what they would think. And Jazz pointed out that that was damaging, to think of your family like they wouldn’t love you for who – or what – you are. And we realized…”

“Oh,” he said, quietly, realizing where this was going. “You realized that you were doing the same thing, sort of? By insisting that I must be half-ghost, too?”

“Well, yeah.” She smiled, but it didn’t seem very happy at all. “So… we’re sorry, Danny, for that.”

“That’s… alright.” He patted her on the hand, shooting her a warm smile. “You were right, anyway. We compared stories and used some of their tech, and we confirmed that I’ve always had a ghost core. But when I was young I had an accident, remember?”

“With the Human Trapper?” His dad’s eyes grew wide in realization. “Oh lord. Did that damage your ghost core to such an extent that you didn’t get your powers?”

Danny shrugged, grin growing a little sheepish. “That’s what we think, at least. We had no way to confirm, of course. But my core wasn’t damaged, just entirely out of energy. Supposedly the equivalent to your invention in their universe, the Ghost Catcher, purged ectoplasmic contamination. So assuming ours worked similar, it might’ve gotten rid of all my ectoplasm, thus running my core dry.”

“I wonder…” His mom made a somewhat pained expression. “I mean, we accept you as you are, of course, but… I wonder if such a thing could be fixed.”

“Well…” Danny pushed himself off of the couch entirely, all of a sudden. He stepped forward, stuck out his chest, and raised his arms in the air. Calling on his core, triggering the transformation, it was as easy as breathing. Entirely natural, like he’d been born to do it.

The rings shifted over him quickly, the light washing away his human form to reveal his ghost form. Briefly, in the short moment it took, he wondered if the other Danny had shown them Phantom.

But the wide-eyed and teary looks he received from his parents told him everything he needed to know. They hadn’t seen it. Hadn’t seen his ghost form until right now, this very moment.

He’d gotten to show them after all.

“Oh, Danny.” His mom suddenly leapt forward, bright lights flashing once more. Her cool arms wrapped around him as they both floated in the living room, her chartreuse eyes tearing up and sparkling with happiness. “Oh, my baby boy. Look at you!”

His dad joined them as well, having shifted to his own ghost form. His green eyes, darker than Danny’s own, were watering as well. Wordlessly, the man wrapped his massive arms around the two of them.

When Jazz joined them, moments later, she was dragged into the hug as well.

Man, he couldn’t _wait_ to show the jerks at school! Finally he was… Finally he was like he was supposed to be.

Finally, things were _right_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And our last chapter title comes from Saturn, by Sleeping At Last. Full title is "I would give anything to hear you say it one more time", but that was a tad too long for me.
> 
> Also this might be the most straightforward reveal I've ever written, which is kinda crazy considering the rest of the story. But really, there were no other circumstances, no warming up to Phantom or injuries or anything. Just Danny deciding, pretty much randomly, to tell his parents. Plenty of space for misunderstandings there.  
I wonder how many people caught the quirk in the writing of all PYP chapters (bar the first one). It was a bit of a hassle at points, but it tied into the overall theme, so that made it worth it for me. Something similar can also be found connecting the first and second chapters to chapters five and six. ;)
> 
> Well, that was that. Another multi-chapter rounded off. Uh. I may or may not be writing this author's note a week beforehand (before posting chapter 5, even), so. If you're interested in more of my work, there is always Weirdward, with weekly updates on Saturday? And I might write more fic, of course, if I have time. Hard to say, since I'm back at school for the first time in years.


End file.
